Conquering the fear of Curves

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

In the last week I had an amazing quilting break through. Anyone who has followed me for a while knows I had an irrational fear of curved piecing. Sewing curves, circles seamed unnaturally and ridiculously hard.

Well you can imagine my “delight” (note the sarcastic inverted commas) when my fellow ScrapBeeLicous Bee member, Michelle of Factotum of Arts set a drunkard path block as her block of the month. To soften the blow, Michelle very generously also sent us all this…

Angela Pingel’s “A Quilter’s Mixology” has changed my quilting life… seriously. Armed with this book and it’s pattern sheet, Michelle’s colour directions, a sharpie pen and a sheet of Overhead Projector film I went to work.

The OHP film worked nicely as a sturdy template and Angela’s instructions made it all seem so simple… and it was ridiculously simple.

In no time I had made the requisite blocks and then just kept going….

Twelve blocks later I decided I wanted to try something different… so I pulled out a circle ruler my husband had bought me recently and started cutting up more fabric…

The Easy Circle Cut ruler is great for making smaller circles and curves, while Angela’s book has a great selection of bigger templates.

Armed with the EZ template and a stack of solids from my stash, I produced copious amounts of curved blocks in about three days…

Enough to make a full quilt top actually… there was a point on Saturday night when my husband thought he might have to do a circle intervention but I convinced him it was okay, I was nearly done…for the moment!!!

What I did not tell him was that I already have another circle quilt planned, using the extra bits from this top. Yes it is official I am now curve obsessed. You have been warned.

28Jul2014

Mixed Medium paper piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Today’s paper piecing pattern is a little bit different from my usual fair, as it is a lovely mix of traditional piecing and paper piecing, not that you can tell from the results….

The pattern I used is Lee at Freshly Pieced’s Arkansas Traveler block. Lee’s instructions are easy to follow and I loved making a block that had a little bit of traditional piecing

as well as some good old-fashioned paper piecing….

This is the block I am setting for August for my Do Good Stitches group. I can not wait to see how everyone in the Hope Circle interprets this block….

30Jun2014

I am blaming the cat….

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

In the short time that the cat has been in our house she has become the scapegoat for a number of offenses…. she has eaten the last of the ice cream, left the light on, very rudely abandoned washing in the dryer and today she is the reason that Paper Piecing Monday is running late….

Despite the cats best efforts, I have finally managed to get a block done…

This lovely star uses the June colour palette for No Hats in the House charity #opgivewarmth. I love the challenge each month of using a different set of colours that I would not usually work worth. I bravely selected a few of the colours in this months palette that were not pink and found Kona Solids to match…

The paper piecing pattern is another one from the Lucky Star BOM patterns from Elizabeth at Don’t Call Me Betsy. This block is the December 2013 Star and I love the square feel to it.

Now the cat and I are going back to watching the World Cup. She is finally over the disappointment of Australia going out and is rallying around the US team.

6Jun2014

Group effort quilts

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

First up I wanted to thank everyone for the wonderful, supportive comments that were left on my last post. After being so nervous about sharing my story, you made me so glad I opened up. Thank you.

Now back to the regularly scheduled programming….today I am thrilled to share two finished quilts that were made as part of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild Charity Sew days….

A fabulous group of ladies helped make blocks, piece and quilt these beauties which were made for local charity Camp Erin. If you are interested in making your own simple quilt like this check out my post about the block we choose for directions.

Finished PMQG chairty quilt 2

The block was so simple but really effective – we managed to get two large tops made in one day. At the same time we also managed to make sure that each top had its own unique flair.

For both these quilts we used the Guild’s left over Riley Blake Challenge fabric. We had quite a few of our Guild members share their left over pieces with us with some added touches – Rachel supplied the coolest airplane fabric, Michelle supplied the navy umbrellas and I raided my stash for some Pearl Bracelets in navy, yellow and grey.

Our two completed tops were then handed over to two of the Guild’s fabulous longarmers, Dawn and Jolene, who set to work weaving their magic.

For the backing we used some of the bigger pieces from the Riley Blake stash and I then add some scrappy binding for the finishing touch.

We now have two fabulous teen boys quilts done and ready to add to our growing collection of quilts for Camp Erin.

19May2014

Paper Piecing Monday is back on schedule

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week I ventured deep into the world wide web searching for a star pattern to make for this week’s Paper Piecing Monday… and ended up with this little ditty.

The block is called ET Phone Home by Lilly’s Quilts and you can find the free paper piecing pattern here. Note the pattern is 12 inches for a 11 1/2 inch finished block not a 12 inch finish.

To get the pieces to align was a bit of a challenge for me. I am use to patterns being designed so that you can easily match points so that things align perfectly. With this pattern there was lots of using pins to make things work (and for me lots and lots and lots of unpicking).