Star String quilt top finished

I am so thrilled to have finally finished my star string quilt top… and extra thrilled that it turned out exactly like I pictured it. So without further ado, here she is in all her scrappy wonderfulness…

I must admit my strong feelings about this quilt maybe effected slightly because I designed the quilt block. You can find the free paper piecing pattern and details about my inspirations here on the original post.

I had a lot of fun making this quilt slowly, piece by piece. Using colour pencils and paper I worked out each square in advance.

The central stars are made from lots of little bits from my scrap pile. The black and white fabrics were a little bit of scrap pile and a lot of stash cutting.

I wanted bright colours for the stars and mainly worked with red, yellow, orange, blue, green and purple with a smattering of apricot, fuchsia and citron.

The finished quilt top is 62 inches square – five blocks across five blocks down. This of course meant there was a lot of paper to pull off the back.

I am now off to vacuum up the paper and thread pieces that are littered all over our living room floor, before my husband comes home!

9Aug2013

I do not love it… but

Posted in Finished Quilts, Project Linus by wombatquilts

If you are like me, you have some quilt blocks, tops or even finished quilts that you really do not like. You had a great idea, a vision in your head and what you have ended up with has fallen a little short. What do you do with these quilt projects?

For me the challenge becomes finishing them. This quilt is a case in point. I made the top months and months ago. It sat sadly in the corner of my quilt space, unloved. But last week, when I realized I had not given quilts to Project Linus in months, my wonky churn dash got dusted off and is now finished.

I must admit I took some short cuts with finishing this quilt.

1. I did simple, quick and easy straight line quilting using plain white thread.

2. I used a whole cloth back – IKEA fabric of course. No fancy pieced or even scrap pieced back.

3. I raided my box of pre-made binding and just picked one. Usually I um and ah about the binding (it is a big decision after all). 9 times out of ten I normally end up making binding specially for the quilt being finished.

4. I machine bound the quilt. I usually like to hand sew the binding, as I find it a nice handmade finishing touch.

All these little decision mean I get the quilt done much quicker, with minimal fuss. The quilt is then ready to be washed, dried and then delivered to Project Linus, leaving me ready to move onto the next one.

This is the next one… another quilt top that has been sitting in my cupboard, this time for years.

I encourage you dust off an old unfinished top or that pile of quilt blocks. Finish the sucker – quilt it, bind it, wash it and deliver it to your local Project Linus or Quilts for Valor or Wrap them in love or Quilts for Kids or whatever charity you choose. Let someone love and be comforted by your quilty creation.

Go on you know you want too…

2Aug2013

Clearing the backlog…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

I have been working hard this week to start clearing the backlog of quilt tops I have floating around my work space. What is spurring me on is the fact that I have not donated quilts to Project Linus for a couple of months now and am feeling a little bad about it.

So I spent yesterday day basting some tops up and managed in amongst it all to get my 1001 Peeps top finally finished. I first blogged about this quilt months ago (you can find the link here). So without further ado here is finally a compete finish.

I love the 1001 Peeps range by Lizzy House, actually I love everything Lizzy House does. She is one of my favorite fabric designers and you will see her Pearl Bracelet range in just about everything I do.

This square in square pattern is so easy and just perfect for fussy cutting.

I backed the quilt using scrap bits of the fabric I had left over from making the front and a splash of solids.

Finally I bound and labeled the quilt so it is now ready for delivery to the Project Linus meeting this month.

I am hoping to get at least another two tops finished this week. Wish me luck.

3Jul2013

Revisiting blush – WIP Wednesday

Posted in Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

A month or so ago I pulled this stash of fabrics that I thought was lovely, soft and pretty (original post here).

The block I originally made with this fabric pull did not excite me as much as I would have liked. Fast forward a month, and after working on a collection of graphic, bright quilts, I wanted something different. This is where I ended up….

I am loving how this quilt is coming together. It is fabulously easy, fabulously scrappy and fabulously girly.

It is being made almost completely from my scrap bin, and I have only had to cut some of the longer strips so far. I have not been stressing at all about choosing the fabrics – I have full embraced just going with the first strip of fabric that I pull out of my pile. It is very liberating.

There is an “I Spy” element to these blocks which will make for a great baby/kids quilt. I want to finish this one in time for SwimBikeSew’s 100 Quilts for Kids drive which started this week.

31May2013

Finally a proper finish

Posted in Finished Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Today I am happy to say I finally finished a quilt – quilted, bound and labeled. It has been two weeks since I finished a quilt and I was feeling a little antsy about it all. So without further ado, here she is…

If you are a regular to the site you will have seen this quilt in various stages of production, but she is now all finished!

I must admit I have struggled today to get her photographed properly. The lighting conditions have not been at all co-operative, but fourth time is a charm.

I did straight line stitching using a magenta thread. I really did not know what colour thread to go with – white did not seem right, navy was a little too dark, green too light. The thread choice is okay but it is not quite what I wanted. Too late now right!