Wee Wanders finish

This week I managed to get a proper finish on one of my old wip quilt tops…finally.

This darling quilt has been made for a friend’s daughter who lives on a horse ranch. When I saw the fabulous fabric I knew I had to make her a quilt with these horses on it..

The block I used is a modern interpretation of a classic block. You can see my original post about starting this project from July last year, which includes a link to the block pattern HERE.

Most of the fabric is from the Michael Miller Fabric’s Wee Wanders by designer Sarah Jane with a number of different blenders thrown in. I love the warm colour palette floating on the crisp white background.

I must admit it was pouring rain this morning when I photographed this quilt, which means I did not get as many shots as I wanted. The quilt and the photographer were getting way to wet!

I did manage to get a quick shot of the quilt back which uses some of the left over pieces of Wee Wanders and Kona Snow. To finish up I used Kona Flame, a wonderful tomato red, for the binding.

Quilt Details:

Pattern: Rolling Stone – traditional and paper piecing
Fabric: Wee Wanders by Michael Miller
Size: 55 inch x 55 inches

8Dec2014

Paper Piecing Monday…the jet lagged edition

Posted in Other fun stuff by wombatquilts

After three weeks of sunshine, family and fun I am back to the cold wet reality of Portland… with jet-lag and suitecase full of Aussie sweets! It is the said “jet lag” that I am blaming for the lateness of Paper Piecing Monday…

For those of you who have not experienced the joy that is jet-lag, and in particular East Coast Australia to West Coast America jet lag it boils down to this…I want to be asleep when it is daytime and I am WIDE AWAKE at 2 am. Augh!

Enough whingeing and complaining and onto fun stuff…. this weeks block…

In my jet-lagged haze I named this one Simple Star, do not ask me why! The block is a 32 piece baby, and not really simple, but quite effective.

You can find the free paper piecing pattern for this 8 inch block here…simple star. Have fun with it.

Now that I am back home I promise that my posting will involve more than just green stars (not that there is anything wrong with green stars). A couple of months ago my laptop died and I have had to post from my husbands desktop…and for some strange reason I find writing posts in the office, surrounded by masses of Lord of the Rings Lego and Dungeons & Dragons books off-putting and un-inspiring.

But I promise to work through my discomfort and catch you up on some of the exciting things that have happened in my quilting universe in the last couple of months.

8Sep2014

Something new for Paper Piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Over the next month or so I am going to try something a little different for Paper Piecing Monday. I recently found an old book of quilting patterns at a local thrift store and fell in love with the simplicity but complexity of the blocks. I was fascinated how many of the blocks used this simple square block …

So each week I am going to present a 12 x 12 inch classic block, and the pattern to make it…. starting with the Sawtooth Block.

To make this block you will need 9 components all of which are 4 1/2 inches square unfinished…

You can find the paper piecing pattern for the simple square block, which will be using over the next couple of weeks here…WQ Simple square block For the half square triangles you can easily make these traditionally or you can use a paper piecing pattern which you can find here….WQ Half Square triangle

You can also traditionally piece the simple square but I love the accuracy that you get from paper piecing for this. It also allows you to get your fussy cut center just right .

When you have made all your components, lay the block out and then start piecing it together.

You can remove the paper at this stage, particularly if you have traditionally pieced the half square triangle corners. To complete my block I sewed the three blocks together in rows and then sewed those rows together. Easy.

With all the blocks I will be showcasing over the coming weeks, there is so many ways to interpret the pattern. I will be using Lizzy House’s Catnap fabric range for all my blocks, but the patterns work just as well with solids and scrappy colour play as they do with complete fabric lines.

You get different feeling blocks depending on how you choose to place your colours and fabrics….

there really is so many options and so much you can do with just this block….

This is definitely a pattern that I will be revisiting. I already have a plan for a whole quilt just out of Sawtooth blocks.

So see you next week for another traditional block given the paper piecing treatment….

25Jul2014

The PMQG Orphan sampler

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

At this week’s PMQG meeting we delivered a large stack of quilts to a local Charity, Camp Erin. It was so wonderful to see the beautiful quilts that people had created for this charity. Among those delivered were three quilts made at our Charity Sew Days and the Orphan block sampler I put together….

The blocks in this quilt are fabulously diverse and really kind of fun…

Some of the blocks I trimmed, some I added borders too and others I cut in half…

There are hexagons, scrappy trips, churn dashes, nine patches and modern improv blocks. We have it all…

For the backing I found a wonderfully bright and slightly obnoxious Kaffe Fassett orange floral print that was just perfect…

The beautiful quilting was done by PMQG member Kazumi Peterson. Kazumi added an overall floral motif which went perfectly with the back of the quilt and added such a pretty cohesiveness to the front of the quilt.

I then finished things off with bright orange binding. I knew that I had to highlight the orange of the quilt – the blocks and the backing. I had originally tried putting an orange border around the quilt, instead of the grey, but I found it fought with the blocks for attention. Orange binding was the perfect compromise.

My darling husband had originally called this an ugly quilt but I think he is very wrong. The finished product is fun and bright and pretty…but I am a little biased.

13Jun2014

Another quilt top done…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

If you follow me on Pintrest you will know that I have been obsessed this past week with finishing my orange and brown quilt top. I got a bee in my bonnet and could not let it go, even though I had other pressing quilts with deadlines.

The quilt started life some months ago as this simple block – you can find the free paper piecing pattern link on my original post. So over the last week I have feverishly been making blocks….sew, iron, trim repeat.

With scrap quilting there is not a lot of opportunities to chain piece usually but with this project I found myself chain piecing a bit. First I chain pieced an orange block to a brown block and then I match up those units and chain pieced the blocks together. It worked wonderfully well and I used so much less thread. Eventually it all came together to make this…

I love the meta pattern this block creates…and I extra love the scrappy feel to the quilt. The splashes of white and the variation in the tones of both the orange and brown make the top really sing.

The paper pattern makes for pretty accurate piecing so that there is a lovely crispness to the points and joins.

Now all I have to do is rip the paper off, baste, quilt and bind it. I already have a backing fabric chosen and have a name picked out. This is my Jaffa quilt.. .named after a fabulous Aussie chocolate orange lolly/sweet/candy.