Quilts of love…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I managed to finish up two very special quilts. If you are a member of the Modern Quilt Guild you may have heard of the Quilts for Pulse drive. After the tragic shooting in June at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida a member of the Orland Modern Quilt Guild, Alissa Lapinsky put out a call for rainbow heart blocks. She wanted to make quilts for families of the victims.

The call for help from Alissa gave me, and some of my friends, the opportunity to do something in a situation where you usually feel as if there is nothing you can do to help. So one weekend in June Lisa, Sara, Kristie and I got together and made a quilt…

I had a tonne of pre-cut 5 inch squares in hundreds of different colours – I am getting in the habit of cutting my scraps into usable sizes and had just cut a pile of my solid scraps into squares. So we sorted the squares into colour order and started playing. The end result looked like this…

We pieced this beautiful top, working together, in a day. It was so much fun to make this top with friends and it was so good to do something positive in the days following the tragedy. It then took me a little while to get it on the long arm at Modern Domestic.

This was the biggest quilt I had every long armed and I must admit I got a little crazy somewhere in the middle of it… my hearts got a little loopy but the overall effect is not too bad.

I went with a pieced black and white quilt back to counteract the bright loud front of the quilt…

The three sets of feet you can see under the quilt are our husbands. The boys helped hold the quilt while we photographed it…. and as one of those boys is over 6 foot it gives you an idea of how big the quilt finished up.

We finished the quilt off with a label from Story Patches, who kindly donated labels to many quilters making Pulse Quilts. I had not used one of these patches before but it was perfect for this quilt. If you have not seen Story Patches they allow you to download message about your quilt using photos, audio and/or video. There is a QR code on the label that can be scanned so the receiver of the quilt can see the story behind making the quilt. We downloaded a message and some photos of the day we spent making the quilt.

This quilt has now joined the hundreds of other quilts and blocks that have been sent to Orlando. I doubt that Alissa knew that she would get the amazing response she did. Thanks to efforts of the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild, the quilting community has flooded Orlando with love, support and quilts.

20Feb2015

Cushion addicton…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts by wombatquilts

I have recently become slightly obsessed with quilted cushions. It all began when I started making class sample for Modern Domestic (my local quilt shop)…and it has not stopped yet.

After making my tiny Economy block mini quilt I wanted to do a bigger version of the block, just for fun. Using a 5 inch block I made this easy cushion in no time…

I used more of my Cotton and Steel stash and just loved fussy cutting the little bunnies in particular…they are so darling. What I love about the Economy block is it is so easy to pick three colours – with this pillow it was pink, navy and yellow… and just go.

Your colourway guides your fabric choices as you rummage through your scraps and stash. As I was pulling fabric I made sure I had a variety of tones – lights and darks in the three colours. The rest is as easy…make the blocks and sew them together. Because you have a coherent colour scheme you can lay out the blocks randomly and get beautiful results.

The cushion top took twenty 5 inch blocks or if you are more adventurous you can do a baby quilt with just sixty three (63) blocks..

This cushion gave me my first opportunity to test out the walking foot on the Bernina 550… and oh what fun it was…

It was so easy to attach the foot (unlike my old machine which involved screw drivers and painters tape!) and the sewing was a breeze. I can not wait to try a bigger quilt with this foot. Hopefully next week I will have quilt done and dusted!

2Feb2015

A heartfelt Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week I decided to get into the Valentine spirit, despite my husband poo pooing the holiday at every turn. He strongly feels that it is a holiday that is purely about selling cards and flowers and chocolates. He feels just a little less negatively about Christmas and I ignore him then too!

So in honor the of the upcoming day of celebration…and to annoy my husband, I put together a little 3 inch love heart block…

The pattern for these darling little things can be found here….3 inch pp hearts. The pattern sheet has six of the heart patterns on it. After making my first heart I decided that one little heart was not enough for (1) annoying my husband and (2) making this a substantial Paper Piecing Monday, so I pulled some more fabric from my stash (the first block was done purely with scraps)….

and got to work making this….

Hopefully by the end of the week this will be a darling 18 inch cushion…which I may be allowed to put on our couch…

30Jan2015

Constellation crosses

Posted in Quilt patterns, Quilts by wombatquilts

In a moment of crazy at the end of last year I decided that I would not start any new projects in January or February this year. I have so many wips and unfinished quilt tops I thought I needed to do something to clear the backlog. This “resolution” saw me pulling out some old unfinished blocks this week and getting this quilt top done…

I actually started making these blocks in March of last year. I had made a 4 inch paper pieced version of this block for the PMQG medallion and then blew the pattern up to 6 1/2 inches to play with. There is a link on my original post to the free paper piecing pattern in two sizes (4 and 6 inch) in you are interested.

So this week I made a pile more blocks and this morning finally got them all wrangled into a top.

The quilt uses the wonderful Constellation range by designer Lizzy House. I love the fun bright fabrics that Lizzy makes and though I was late to discovering her fabrics, I have been hoarding and using them for a couple of years. I do not think there is a quilt I have made in the last year or so that has not had Pearl Bracelets in it somewhere.

This range is all about stars and fun Constellations, but you could easily use this pattern in any fabric range…the trick is to make sure you have a nice contrast in your blocks and that you embrace the light and dark fabrics from the range.

To really up the contrast with this top I also pulled in some solid white fabric as well as the white on white Pearl Bracelets. I also did not shy away from adding a touch of red/purple. One of the fabrics in the line had a touch of this colour and I thought I would embrace it…just a little. I used the design rule of three and added three blocks with the purple.

I just love how the quilt seems to sparkle and your eyes are forced to move around the top. Now all that is left for me to do is remove the paper and quilt this sucker up!

I am linking up today to Crazy Mom Quilts Friday Finishes.

10Nov2014

More green…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Surprise… I am back again with another installment of Paper Piecing Monday…. and today’s block is another nice one (though I may be a little biased!).

When I designed the pattern it reminded my of the fan block, which is why the block is called Fan Star… though when I sewed all the pieces together I must admit a better name would have been Pinwheel star. Naming the blocks is the hard part for me.

Any way you can find the PDF paper piecing pattern for this 8 inch block here….Fan star. Now I did promise a wip photo but this week kicked my butt and I have not done it yet… next week, I promise.