Inspiration can come from the strangest places

Posted in Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

I am constantly amazed by what inspires me – where ideas and colour combinations for a quilt come from. This week’s work in progress is a good case in point.

This bright scrap quilt was inspired by my local petrol/gas station logo.

Strange I know, but I was filling the car up one day and realized I really love these two colours together. I promptly came home and pulled some scraps and made up this block.

I originally posted about this flying geese pattern back in April this year. You can find the original post, with a free paper piecing pattern here. A couple of months later and I got the urge to finish this quilt top, so I pulled fabric from my stash as well as from my scrap pile and started work.

Now I have a stack of blocks and I am gradually putting the top together.

My placement is random and fun and I have thrown in a couple of reverse blocks to break things up. It is kind of fun making the arrows go all over the place.

I have also been thinking of making some yellow arrows with yellow background, but I am not sure about it. Any thoughts?

23Aug2013

Another log cabin done and dusted…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

I managed to get my Blush log cabin quilted and bound this week. I am so thrilled with how this quilt finished up and can not wait to see how it washes.

I quilted Blush using the diagonal lines of the log cabin block as a guide. I love how the how this simple quilting adds extra interest to the log cabin.

I must admit I am looking forward to trying some of the free-motion techniques I learned last week at the PMQG Meet Up, but I have a few weeks before my wrist is up for the challenge. So the next few quilts will involve straight lines in some shape or form and in the meantime I will do my free-motion exercises in my new graph paper note-book. As instructed by Rachel (of 2nd Ave Studios) I will be using pen only for the doodling. No erasing.

I found the perfect fabric piece in my stash for the back of this quilt – the Weekend by Erin Morris fabric worked perfectly with a little bit of pink supporting fabric.

The final touch was a solid binding in Magenta which just bought the whole quilt together.

Now I am just a few stitches away from finishing my Yummy quilt so it is back to the sewing machine.

I am linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF.

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!

9Aug2013

I do not love it… but

Posted in Finished Quilts, Project Linus by wombatquilts

If you are like me, you have some quilt blocks, tops or even finished quilts that you really do not like. You had a great idea, a vision in your head and what you have ended up with has fallen a little short. What do you do with these quilt projects?

For me the challenge becomes finishing them. This quilt is a case in point. I made the top months and months ago. It sat sadly in the corner of my quilt space, unloved. But last week, when I realized I had not given quilts to Project Linus in months, my wonky churn dash got dusted off and is now finished.

I must admit I took some short cuts with finishing this quilt.

1. I did simple, quick and easy straight line quilting using plain white thread.

2. I used a whole cloth back – IKEA fabric of course. No fancy pieced or even scrap pieced back.

3. I raided my box of pre-made binding and just picked one. Usually I um and ah about the binding (it is a big decision after all). 9 times out of ten I normally end up making binding specially for the quilt being finished.

4. I machine bound the quilt. I usually like to hand sew the binding, as I find it a nice handmade finishing touch.

All these little decision mean I get the quilt done much quicker, with minimal fuss. The quilt is then ready to be washed, dried and then delivered to Project Linus, leaving me ready to move onto the next one.

This is the next one… another quilt top that has been sitting in my cupboard, this time for years.

I encourage you dust off an old unfinished top or that pile of quilt blocks. Finish the sucker – quilt it, bind it, wash it and deliver it to your local Project Linus or Quilts for Valor or Wrap them in love or Quilts for Kids or whatever charity you choose. Let someone love and be comforted by your quilty creation.

Go on you know you want too…

2Aug2013

Clearing the backlog…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

I have been working hard this week to start clearing the backlog of quilt tops I have floating around my work space. What is spurring me on is the fact that I have not donated quilts to Project Linus for a couple of months now and am feeling a little bad about it.

So I spent yesterday day basting some tops up and managed in amongst it all to get my 1001 Peeps top finally finished. I first blogged about this quilt months ago (you can find the link here). So without further ado here is finally a compete finish.

I love the 1001 Peeps range by Lizzy House, actually I love everything Lizzy House does. She is one of my favorite fabric designers and you will see her Pearl Bracelet range in just about everything I do.