Paper Piecing Monday presents Zeppelin

Well the end is definitely in sight with my latest sampler quilt… with this week’s block I have enough blocks for my quilt top layout. So here is the last of my bright and grey blocks – The Zeppelin.

All of the blocks in this quilt have come from the free Block Rockn’ paper pieced series by Julie at 627Handworks. You can find the Zeppelin and the other great patterns here. Julie has just released the last pattern in this series so there are 12 free patterns in total. You should check them out – they range from easy (like this one at just 20 pieces) to complex (her last block, Floyd, is fabulous but much more intricate with 80 pieces).

Because of the size of this pattern you had to stick two pieces of paper together to make the foundation, but that was about as complex as this gets. This block fitted in nicely with the others I have done. Last night I pinned them up on my design wall, so I could start mocking up how to finish this top.

I have a vision in my head how it all should look, I now just need to work out how to make my quilt top match my idea.

I am hoping to get this top finished shortly – unlike my red/aqua top which is still sitting in a box waiting for me to decide what I want to do with it. I am desperate need of some sewing fairies… any one have some spare?

21Aug2013

A Yummy work in progress

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

Last weekend I took part in the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guild Meetup – quite a mouthful hey! Guilds from around the Pacific Northwest gathered in Portland to meet, sew and basically have a great time. It was a lot of fun and I meet some amazing quilters. One of the events on Saturday was a charity sew day at Modern Domestic. I spent several glorious hours using an amazing Bernina Sewing machine making these…

As part of the goodie bag for the Meetup there was small packets 2 1/2 squares of Lecien’s “Happy Mochi yumyum” fabric (Monica, the designer of these fun fabrics is a Portland MQG member).

I gathered my packets, hunted down some of the spare packets that were left over and then bribed some more packets from some friends. Finally when I thought I had enough, I went to work.

I paired the fabric with some Kona “Snow” and happily sat chain piecing and ironing for hours. I managed to get 4 blocks of 12 done during my time at the Sew Day, then bought the whole process home to finish.

There is Yumyum all over my work space, which is fine with me. It is such a happy fun fabric and works well in 2 1/2 inch squares.

I am hoping to have the top finished by Friday, so I am off to quilt some more.

16Aug2013

Star String quilt top finished

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

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!

5Aug2013

Mercury rising – Paper piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Today’s paper piecing pattern is called Mercury, which seems quite appropriate as the temperature gets warmer and warmer. Is it just me or do you also find it harder to quilt in summer? The sunshine and daylight keeps calling me out to play.

Anyway back to Mercury…

Yep it is another fabulous free paper piecing pattern from the amazing Julie at 627handworks. You can find the pattern and directions on here. I think there are only two more patterns left in Julie’s Block Rock’n paper piecing patterns. There are going to be some severe withdrawal symptoms when these blocks end and any suggestions on how to convenience her not to stop would be greatly appreciated.

56 perfect little pieces which make up this fun block. As you can see from the pattern there are a couple of different options for piecing this thing. Again you can have fun with it and play around with your colours and fabrics.

Now the call of the sun is too much… I am heading outside for some vitamin D.

29Jul2013

The fabulous Penny Lane – Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

When I saw the name of today’s block I could not help but smile. I know the block is named after the Beatles song, but Penny Lane reminds me so much of Kate Hudson’s character in “Almost Famous”, one of my favorite films. I think it is a fitting block for both the song and the character…

This 72 piece beauty is another fabulous block for the amazing Julie at 627handworks. You can find the free paper piecing pattern here. Her version of this pattern is darling and very different from mine.

This block was not without a hiccup or two. First there was the “not concentrating on what I am doing mistake” which resulted in this misformed section and lots of unpicking.

Then I managed to break a needle trying to go through the center bulk. I had forgotten to remove the paper bits from the middle section to make it easier to sew through. Whoops.

Despite all this I love how this block came out. It is going to fit beautifully with the other blocks. I may end up replacing my last green block which is also scrappy but which is too messy for me… if you are curious you can find it here.