Baby it’s cold outside…

I woke up this morning to find that Portland is covered in a lovely layer of snow. This does not happen often, and as an Aussie it still absolutely delights me. I was jumping round the house opening all the curtains and gleefully claiming “ohhh it is so pretty”. Then I realised I needed to photograph my quilt this morning. Glee gone.

As much as I love snow I am not a huge fan of being cold. But I rugged up, 4 layers deep, put on some gloves and bravely ventured out to photography my just finished quilt top.

This was the perfect quilt to photograph in the snow, and I have decided to call the quilt “Icicles”…it seemed like a fitting title.

This quilt is a Do.good.stitches project. I recently joined the “Hope Circle” and when it was my turn to set the block I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

We used Julie at 627Handworks “Icky Thump” block – one of the easiest and most effective paper piecing patterns EVER. You can find the free pattern here and my original post here.I love how much variety there is in this quilt. If I had made all the blocks myself the quilt top would not be this interesting – I would have stuck with light greys and turquoises. The wonderful ladies of my quilt circle instead provided me with such wonderful blocks, such variation in greys that the quilt really sings. I can not wait to get the back made and the quilt finished.

2Dec2013

Starry night mash up…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

After putting my blocks up on the design wall last week I really wanted to try to do a different kind of star and this is what I came up with…

I threw together two different patterns from Carol Doak’s book “50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars“. I seriously love how you can mix and match the star patterns and come up with your own concoction.

For this 64 piece star I used one piece of the Montana star and one piece of Ohio. It is a unusual combination but I kind of like the fractured look the star has. I think it will go nicely with the other stars made so far.

22Nov2013

Tricky Triangles finally finished

Posted in Finished Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

I am very very very pleased to say that my pink and green triangle quilt is finally all done. I have procrastinated with this quilt in new and exciting ways over the last 6+ months… but she is now completed and I can move on with the rest of my life.

I must admit, in the spirit of full disclosure, that I had planned for this quilt to be bigger than what she ended up as, but I got to the point where I had had enough and just went with the blocks I had made. Her finished dimensions are 45 inches x 50 inches which is a smallish kids quilt.

I first posted this block way back in April… I had been given a small scrap pile of olive green fabric and wanted to do something with it. Hot pink fabric was chosen to go with the olive and a triangle paper pieced pattern from the “Modern Blocks” book was chosen. I was so optimistic with that first post I titled it “Triangle Love”.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, when I decided to bite the bullet and finish this sucker… but now I was referring to it as “Triangle Trauma“. Oh what a difference time makes….

Now all is said and done I am really happy with how this quilt turned out…but will not be jumping into another triangle quilt for a while! For the backing of the quilt I used a piece of Densye Schmidt which worked perfectly with the quilt top.

For the quilting I selected a random triangle, quilted around it and then radiated the quilting out from there. It is straight line quilting but with a twist. I went with pink thread of course, because you can never get enough pink in my opinion!

I nearly went with pink binding but opted for a Kona olive green instead – I think it made the pink pop a little more.

So now that I have finished a quilt, I am now, under Ashley’s mum’s rules, allowed to start another one. I have a pattern picked out and fabric pulled… stay tuned.

Quilt Details:

Technique: Modern scrap

Block: Paper pieced triangle pattern from “Modern Blocks”

Finished size: 45″ x 50″

18Nov2013

More Starry Nights – Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Okay I am getting a little obsessive over these blocks…I am just loving how they are turning out and can not wait to start playing with them on my design wall. This week I add another fun one to the collection.

This is another pattern from Quilting on the Squares free Bonus Star collection. The pattern is called Diamond in the Rough and comes in at a measly 48 pieces.

I am hoping with next weeks block to have enough stars done to start playing with layout.

13Nov2013

I have a confession to make…

Posted in Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

…deep breath…. here goes….I am a messy quilter. You may not be able to tell from what I have put up on the site but in the last couple of weeks the truth has become harder and harder to ignore.

So what has forced this revelation…. Quilting Bees. Over the last couple of weeks I have been getting quilt blocks from around the country – I was “Queen Bee” for both ScrapBeeLicous Bee and Do.good.stitches Hope Circle.

So here is the evidence, as I see it. Exhibit A…. a block received for the Do.good.stitches Bee.

Please note the neat seams. The lack of loose threads. The overall precision and beauty of the back of the block.

Now Exhibit B…. my Icky Thump block for the same quilt.

It is down right embarrassing. In my defense I taught myself to quilt and never knew that you should carefully cut threads. Since seeing my fellow quilters blocks I have started taking more care with my threads but I still trim my paper piecing with scissors.

With these startling revelations and confessions, there is only one saving grace…. you really can not tell from the front of the quilts.

When setting this block for the Bee, I did not realise that most of my fellow Hope Circle had not paper pieced. I believe I drove a couple of them to drink. It really did not occur to me that there are people out there that have not tried paper piecing – I wrongly assumed that it was a technique commonly used.

I set this block because it was an easy block to do, but very very effective. Some of you may recognize the inspiration from a post earlier in the year.

I made this block using Julie at 627handworks free Icky Thump paper piecing pattern. I loved it so much and was determined to make a full quilt in this colour way.

The quilt is coming together nicely… I am still awaiting a few more blocks in the post and then I can put the top together. The finished top will be 4 blocks wide x 5 blocks long…. and fabulous.