The joy of quilting with others…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I am going to showcase some of the amazing quilts that the Portland Modern Quilt Guild has made as part of its Charity Program. The PMQG has a pretty active Charity arm and once a month we meet to make quilt blocks for one of our selected causes… our January get together produced this beauty…

half log cabin quilt

During the Sew Day we made a pile of half log cabin blocks…using pink, orange, red, purple and black & white stripes. Each blocks started with a center square and we then sewed out until we reach 12 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (or trimmed down if we got a little carried away)…

half log cabin blocks

At the end of the day we had enough blocks to make a big (70 x 70) and a small (48 x 48) quilt…

small quilt

Bright, loud and fun were the words of the day…

half log cabin quilt detail 3

The two quilts were then sent out to two of our Guild members who did a wonderful job quilting them… the small quilt has a straight line pattern that radiates out from the center of the quilt…

small half log cabin quilt detail

The back of the quilt gives you a good view of the overall pattern… I love how effective this quilting is with this block… and I extra love that I could achieve this effect with my home machine, a ruler and Frixon pen.

small quilting detail

On the large quilt each four block section has an amazing feathering pattern on it…

quilt detail

Kazumi, who quilting the large top, used a ruler set to create the wonderful motifs in each section…

half log cabin quilt detail 2

The quilting is so pretty and detailed… and totally beyond my skill level….

quilting detail

Both quilts are so bright and fun, and the light touches of black and white stop the them from being too obviously loud and garish. They will shortly go out into the world and provide some warmth, comfort and colour in some kids life. Thanks to all who donated fabric, made blocks or quilting these beauties.

11Jul2014

My Michael Miller Challenge Quilt

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

I finally finished my MQG Challenge quilt this week, just inside the deadline. This is the first of these fabric challenges I have done it was fun to challenge myself to use the fabrics given with only some solids in a supporting role. The fabrics I started with were:

After a month of umming and ahhing I finally settled on a plan… log cabins. A classic block that I approached in a completely different way (for me anyway).

As soon as I started cutting the fabulous challenge fabric into 1 inch strips I saw the patterns and the colours so differently. With the help of a couple of yards of Couture Cotton in Soft White and smattering of Couture in Breeze, Sun, Apple, Dirt, Spa and Fog the 7 inch log cabins came together.

I placed the colour strips randomly around the log cabin., and was not afraid to chop up a log into different colors.

I managed to use every scrap of fabric I could.

The wonderful flower print in particular was great fun to work with, as every piece was so different.

For the back of the quilt I “borrowed” some of a friends extra fabric, as well as some of the scraps left over from my top…

For the quilting I went with straight lines in a plaid formation, dictated by the log cabins. I used a cream thread and stitched right down the middle of the logs and I love the result.

The finishing touch was to add some white binding. I played with other colours but the white was the least intrusive binding. There is a small splash of blue amongst the white binding, but you have to really search for it!

I must admit it was a challenge for me to work with this much white. I am not particularly neat and if you add to that a black cat and a clumsy husband and you have a recipe for disaster. Luckily I managed to get it photographed before it got too dirty… about 5 second after the photos were taken it got its first splotch of dirt thanks to the cat! So the quilt is heading to the washing machine now…

Quilt details:
Name: Chopped petals
Pattern: 7 inch log cabin block
Technique: Paper piecing
Finished size: 42 x 42
Fabric: Michael Miller Petal Pinwheels & Couture cotton

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.

23Jan2014

My blue period continues…

Posted in Other fun stuff, Quilt patterns, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week I got a little side tracked by a pile of scraps sitting around my sewing space. Most of the time I do a good job of keeping my creative urges under control – I usually jot the idea down in my note-book and go back to what I should be doing. This week the “should be doing” was quilting my sister in laws quilt... instead I took the scraps from that quilt and made some of these…

Yes the scraps from the project I SHOULD have been finishing tempted me into making log cabin blocks. In my defense I had a whole pile of 2 1/2 inch strips of fabric already cut and lots and lots of scrappy little ends of fabric. They cried out to be made into a log cabin, and I could not ignore it. The end result of this diversion is this lovely little top…

This 40 x 40 inch quilt top took me about 4 episodes of “Top of the Lake” to make and came together really easily. I already knew the colours worked together and all the cutting was done I just had to make log cabins.

I am really beginning to love what you can do with solids. I struggled with the first quilt with the lack of pattern, but now can not wait to make my next solids quilt. I have a cunning plan already.

This fun little exercise not only distracted me from my quilting to do list, but also added another UFO to my pile, but it was worth it. The only hard thing about this quilt so far has been photographing it in the howling wind this morning…