Cheese & crackers – wip Wednesday

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

This week I have been playing with a traditional quilt pattern called “crackers”. My first variation is a bright scrappy block, which I think will make a great boys quilt.

The cracker pattern is a simple quilt block made up of patchwork bars with triangles at their ends. I used a paper piecing pattern, but there is some great tutorials on how to piece this block online including at Moda Bake Shop and at Cut to Pieces.

While putting the “cheese” blocks together (this yellow = cheese in my brain for some reason) I had the urge to use the block a little differently. My next approach was again scrappy but not based on colour combinations. The second variation was based on a collection of multicoloured floral fabrics sitting in my stash for ages. I used a some of my collection in the quilt in my blog header and I have been itching to use more. So I made these blocks.

I was not sure at first if this idea would work at all. Tuesday afternoon I tentatively grabbed a fabric, cut it and made a block. Block after block I kept wondering if it would come together. I often make quilt blocks to test out ideas – I do not sketch or play in Photoshop, which would probably be the sensible way to go. It was a relief to finally lay out some of the blocks Tuesday evening and see this.

I think this is going to be a fun quilt when it is finished. I am now looking forward to pulling some more fabrics out of my stash and seeing where it all goes. Wish me luck.

19Apr2013

Sunburnt Country… an almost finished Friday

Posted in Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

I was recently commissioned to do a baby quilt by a family friend. She wanted a quilt that felt Australian without being too overtly Aussie. After much discussions and looking at some quilt reference we settled on the idea of “A Sunburnt Country”. There is a fabulous old Australian Poem, whose most famous stanza is:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

With the inspiration in mind, I ended up creating this…

I only finished the top last night, after I got back from the Portland Modern Quilting Guild. It is made up of 378 three-inch squares and measures 45 inches wide by 52 1/2 inches tall.

I pieced this quilt together in sections, a trick I learned from a Oh Fransson’s post about her Sparkle punch quilt. This process worked wonders and made it (a) less daunting to piece and (b) easier to align the blocks. I worked in 6 x 6 block sections.

As you can tell from this dodgy photo, I struggled with the darker purple fabrics. I had to dig deep into the fabric stash to find enough appropriate fabrics to finish off the top corners of the quilt.

When laying out this quilt I did play with a couple of colour variations, including replacing the purple with browns and with adding some green into the mix. Neither of these options worked well, particularly seeing this was a baby quilt for a girl. In the spirit of girly fun, when I was selecting my fabric I had a great time finding novelty and fussy cuts prints. Hidden in the quilt are elephants, dogs, chairs, boats, deer, flags, flowers, stars, ducks, oranges, lady bugs, bees, bears, hearts and so much more.

This weekend I will hopefully get the top basted and ready for quilting next week. I have been so focused on completing quilt tops that I have not actually finished a quilt for over a week. I am definitely slacking!

12Apr2013

The joy of 5 inch squares.

Posted in Finished Quilts, Project Linus, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Last year I had a brief period of time when I had some back issues that meant that sitting was not a fun thing to do. I decided that, seeing I could not sit at a sewing machine, I would cut fabric. For weeks I cut 5 inch squares out of my scraps and stash. The end result was hundreds and hundreds of 5 inch squares. Now all I had to do was find ways to use them.

My first step was to make a pile of simple baby quilts for Project Linus which played with colour (please excuse the dodgy i-phone photos).

This year I have got a little more creative with the squares, while still keeping it simple. First I used the squares as the basis for my wonky star quilt which you can see here. I then used the left over bits and pieces of that quilt (plus some left over scrappy white squares) to make this.

The 5 inch squares were used for the center pieces of the block, the background of the quilt plus I cut a number of the squares diagonally and used these triangles to make the star points. Wonky star quilts really are so ridiculously easy.

The latest quilt I used my 5 inch squares on is my extra-large granny square quilt, which I have just finished.

With this quilt I just lay the blocks down diagonally to make the pattern, sewed the blocks together then trimmed the extra edges and it was ready to go. Again ridiculously easy.

With both these quilts I did a simple straight quilting, running down both sides of the “ditch”.

The backing for both these quilts is from Ikea. The granny squares got the most fabulous fun lips fabric as it’s back (yes the photo is upside down!)

And for the wonky stars I went with a simple black & white music note fabric.

What I love about Ikea fabrics is their width. You can easily piece larger kids quilts with one piece of fabric plus their prints are really fun. Both these quilts are now finally finished and ready for delivery this month to Project Linus.

8Apr2013

Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

May I present the Washington Star from Carol Doak’s “50 Fabulous Paper Piecing Stars“.

I went with scraps again – I have so many little bits and pieces I feel obliged to use what I can. The scraps combined with the background fabric (from Aneela Hooey’s “Sherbert Pips”) has made for a very busy but modern block. I think this is a paper pattern you could really play with to get very different blocks depending on your fabric/colour placement.

The actual block segments were an easy piece – just 64 fabric bits make up this complete block.

I am now heading back to the sewing machine. I have 5 different projects in various stages spread out around our living room. I have to do some sewing and then some cleaning before the husband gets home. Does anyone else have little bits of thread scattered all over the house?

5Apr2013

Sun & Sea quilt finished

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

I have just finished my sunshine and sea quilt that I started just after I came back from Australia… and I am really pleased with how it turned out. I keep looking at it and smiling. It reminds me so much of the fun time we spent at the beach, when the sun was shining and the water was warm. On this cold and over cast Portland day it reminds me that sun does shine, somewhere! Summer is not going to come quick enough for me.

The overcast day does have one advantage – it is great for taking photos (as long as it is not raining!). Okay, enough about the weather… moving on.

With this quilt I have been struck by how a quilt pattern can change when you sew the whole quilt together. I rarely map or sketch out the finished quilt. I really like to just see where it all takes me, for better or for worse. So I started the process with an easy block that looked like this.

The pattern in the block is like a simple star with four points. I mirrored the block pieces to give it a more interesting effect. When I look at the quilt now I struggle to find the stars, all I see is a pin wheel. The original pattern is in there, I just have to search a little harder for it.

This quilt was really quick and simple to make but the interesting part came when I was sewing it all together. There are sections of the quilt where 12 block pieces meet which causes a little bit of bulking, even with sewing seams flat.

To help with the bulking I chose quilting that would go through and around the center of this join. In having so much quilting through the bulk it helped flatten and strengthen this area. It also made for a lovely pattern of quilting.

A pieced back and scrappy orange binding finishes the whole thing off.

I must admit it had been a month or so since I had hand stitched the binding on a quilt and in that time I seem to have forgotten how to do it. The stitches at the start are a little big and a little rough, but by half way through the process I was back to invisible stitches. I was tempted to unpick it all but decided to leave it be. Looking at the small section where the hand stitching is visible reminds me that the quilt is hand-made and that a lot of effort has gone into the finished product.