Back on track….

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

So I am not sure if any of you noticed…but I have been very slack in my posting lately. I have managed to keep my Paper Piecing Monday posts happening but everything else has just fallen by the wayside.

Bad bad me. Last week I was teaching all week and found that my creativity was completely absent. I have been a little out of kilter for a couple of months now and I am slowly getting my mojo back….and here is the proof.

Yesterday I had a blast using the new Bernina long arm machine at my LQS (local quilt store), Modern Domestic. Up until yesterday I had never done a whole quilt by myself, and I was so excited by how much fun I had. I did an all over squares and boxes pattern which seem to come very naturally to me (that means I did not quilt myself into a corner once!).

The quilt was one of my unfinished Do Good Stitches quilts… and I love the scrappy feel to it all. If you are interested in the pattern we used, you can find the link on my original post here…

I did a simple solid back and a wide navy binding to finish it all off. In a couple of weeks I am going to go back and give it all another go with one of my other unfinished Do Good quilt tops. I may branch out and try something loopy!

I have a long way to go before I master this long arm free motion thingy but I am pleased with the results of my first step. I must admit I am now hankering for some straight stitch quilting on my home machine, so I may baste up some more quilts this weekend. I had forgotten how satisfying it is to actually finish something up.

9Jul2014

Wee Wanders WIP Wednesday

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week I have been playing with a selection of the Wee Wander’s fabric range by Michael Miller. I love this fabric and have had a blast playing this week.

Using the fabric for inspiration I pulled supporting fabric from my stash and ended up with this lovely bundle.

As soon as I bought the Wee Wanders, I knew what block I wanted to use – the Rolling Stone Block which dates back to the late 19th century…

I found this block, and great instructions on the Dont’ Call me Betsy site. I went with the traditional block layout but no matter what layout you use, it is an easy block that is made up of three units.

1. A single fabric square… perfect for highlighting the wonderful fussy cut horses …

2. A block made up of a rectangle of your chosen neutral (for me it was Kona Snow) and a rectangle of your coloured fabric. This was a great opportunity for me to chain piece, something I do not often get to do…

3. A square in square block, that is paper pieced, but can be done traditionally as well. For my blocks I removed the paper from this unit before I sewed the block together (a first for me, but it worked perfectly).

These units are then laid out to make a finished 12 1/2 inch block. I must admit for my block I enlarged the block slightly to room for the horse blocks. My unfinished block is 14 1/2 inches square.

This week the weather here in Portland has been gloriously hot and I have not got as much of this quilt done as I would have liked. I have three blocks completed…

and…

and as the design wall shows, a number in process.

I am determined today not to be distracted by the sun…or the cat… of the World Cup. AUGH!

23Apr2014

Keeping the volume on low…

Posted in Quilts by wombatquilts

First for all thanks for all the well wishes over the last two weeks… it has been slow going but after 10 days of wallowing in self-pity I am slowly getting back into quilting. Yesterday I finally put the machine back up and sewed a little… I thought I was at last okay enough to “operate heavy machinery”.

So I have been slowly, very slowly quilting a darling low volume quilt I had pieced before I got sick. Actually I have pieced two quilts which are almost identical – they use the same fabric but just arranged differently. It is a custom order for two gorgeous twin toddlers who happen to really like pink… girls after my own heart.

I have also discovered another joy of quilting in the last two days – you can do a little sewing and then have a lie down when you need to.

I promise I will be back on schedule next week…

4Apr2014

Whoo we have a finish…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

It has been over a month since I posted my last finished quilt and I am feeling a little slack for not finishing something up sooner… life really just kept getting in the way. But after some quilting and binding I am pleased to present…

…my baby blue log cabin quilt. This quilt was made using scraps left over from the quilt I made my sister-in-law and the top was put together in record time… and then just sat with my other UFO’s until I took pity on it last week.

I loaded some electric blue thread into my machine, attached my walking foot and started quilting.

Lots of straightish lines later the top was quilted. For the back of the quilt I used a piece of IKEA fabric I had in my stash that seemed to work well.

The finishing touch was some solid navy binding… nothing too fancy but I think it was what was called for.

So I have my first finished quilt for April. “Baby Blue” will be heading to Project Linus this month, as our chapter has a shortage of baby quilts at the moment… and I am off to sew more little bits of fabric together.

21Feb2014

Simple, easy, quick and fun

Posted in Quilts by wombatquilts

Monday night my husband decided to abandon me for some fun and games with some of his friends. I was a little excited to have the night to myself and decided that I wanted to try to finish a quilt top in a night. I found the perfect fabric for my plan, some 1/2 yard cuts of three prints from Michael Miller’s “Les Monsieur” I bought a couple of months ago.

Using this fabulous print from the collection as my focus, I pulled supporting green and blue fabrics, tone on tone white and some mustaches from my stash and got to work.

I cut strips from my stash fabric and fussy cut the Les Monsieur fabric and hours later I had this…

It was a fun and somewhat liberating experience making this quilt. Once I knew my colour scheme and had some of the main prints fussy cut it was an easy process of putting blocks together. Other than trimming your blocks to size (I used my 9 1/2 inch square ruler) you do not have to worry too much about precise measuring.