Tackling some challenging blocks

Posted in Quilt patterns, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Things came to a crunch this week with some very over due Bee blocks that could no longer be ignored, no matter how hard I tried.

One of the things I love about doing quilting Bees is that you are challenged, every month, to make different blocks and for me it is a good way to try new, non paper piecing stuff. This month’s challenges included…

This block is 12 1/2 inches square and was requested as part of the ScrapBeelicious Bee. When I first looked at the pattern I was a little overwhelmed, but I cut the squares as I was cutting fabric for another quilt and chain piecing made the process less daunting.

The pattern, Star Value by Happy Quilting, is perfect for a Bee, because you do not want to be making a whole quilt of these suckers. The free tutorial also has the calculations to make the block in different sizes from 12 inches up to 28 inches.

Surprisingly, I had a much more harrowing experience making these Bee blocks…

The ScrapBeelicious January block (yes yes I am very very late with this one) challenged us to make the Ann Marie Horner’s Feather Blocks…

For some reason these were the blocks I had to unpick the most. The center grey spine of the feather was too short and I struggled with getting the pattern pieces to align. In the end I just wanted to make a paper piecing pattern to make this sucker… it would have been so much easier!

The last lot of Bee blocks for this week were a simple and fun….

My February do.Good.Stitches Block was the Starflower block by Ellison Lane. This block was so easy and the pattern makes two blocks at a time… genius!

So I have now done my quota of half square triangles (HST) for the month. For the rest of the month I am only tackling those suckers via paper piecing.

26Feb2014

Colour Play – Grey

Posted in Colour Play, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

The last week or so I have been playing with a different kind of colour combination…one that really has not got a lot of “colour” in it. My inspiration was a very old photo that hangs on our living room wall…

(Please note..I can neither confirm or deny that I am in this photo).

Anyway I have always loved black and white photographs, which really are more grey and white than black and white, and thought why not play with greys in a quilt. The end result was this block…

I used another fabulous free paper piecing pattern from Quilters Cache called Atlantic Sea. The block pieces look rather strange and a pattern is not immediately obvious.

But when you put more and more of the blocks together you get this wild, slightly mesmerizing pattern.

I think as this quilts grows more and more patterns and shapes will become visible. It is really a little trippy but cool.

17Feb2014

Paper Piecing Monday overload

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Today’s paper piecing Monday is a “three for the price of one” deal. I got a little carried away doing my neon blocks last week and thought I would share all the blocks I made. First up is…

A flying geese block, of sorts. I wanted a graphic block that was not a star and this is where I ended up. I think you can have a lot of fun with this block, depending on how you choose to colour it and lay it out.

It is a pretty simple block and you can find the paper piecing pattern here…Neon Lost Geese. Next up I did another graphic block…

I know I am going to revisit this block because I am dying to make this pattern with a more scrappy approach and fussy cut centers. Too much fun. I have made a 6 x 6 inch pattern for this block, Neon Square block but I think I will enlarge the block for my scrappy version.

The last neon block I made this week was a re-do of a paper piecing pattern I made last year…

Yep I revisited the marvelous Julie @ 627Handwork’s Marley block. You can find the free pattern here. This pattern is fabulously bold, geometric and perfect for this quilt sampler. I now have only two more blocks to go before I can finish this quilt up.

3Feb2014

We have neon…we have pink…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

What more could you want?

This paper piecing Monday sees me full embracing the Neon crazy. In my defense I did not start this but I am definitely going to finish it. This week I worked out exactly what direction I wanted to take with this quilt and so designed this block with my new “cunning plan” in mind.

You see this quilt was inspired by two “orphan” blocks that I inherited when I took over my role at Portland Modern Quilt Guild. I hate to see fabulous blocks go to waste, and love the challenge of finding a way to use them. I warn you I inherited a lot of weird and wonderful things and you will see more of them over the next 12 months.

The two blocks I started with were 11 inch neon pink and grey. I do not know who made them, but they are fabulous. My plan is to border the grey blocks with 1 inch of white sashing and make a checker board style quilt with alternating 11 inch grey blocks and white border blocks.

So for this week’s block I designed a snowball style block, with a larger than usual white border. I am loving this block and can not wait to make it in my traditional scrappy style. The block is a fun 40 pieces and was really simple to whip up. The 12 inch pattern can be found here…WQ Neon Block 2.

I also wanted to thank everyone for their kind comments about my “magazine debut”. I quilt because I love (in a crazy insane way) but I never thought other people would enjoy what I made as much as they have. I continue to be surprised by the response my quilts get, touched by the comments people leave and grateful for the friendships I am making.

Thank you.

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…