A fabulous little Bee Block

Posted in Quilt patterns, Quilts by wombatquilts

It has been a while since I posted any of the Do Good Stitches quilt blocks I have been making. Every month I make blocks as part of this charity Bee and I love it. I look forward to the first of the month when the new pattern is put up on our Flickr Group and I always eagerly make the blocks. I love being challenged to make things that I would not usually make in colour schemes I may not necessarily think to put together.

Twice a year I get to be the Queen and set the block and in June I choose this block and colour scheme for my month….

The block is from a free pattern by Clover and Violet which they originally put up as part of a Christmas quilt they were making. The colour tweaks I made changed how the finished block looks and made for a striking quilt top…

I love how the yellow strings make a grid pattern and the stars just pop. Each of my fellow Do Good Bee members made two blocks, so there is so much variety in the stars, which I LOVE.

One of my favorite bits about being Queen Bee is getting to see all the blocks as they come in and ohh and ahh over the fabric used (I may have a bit of stash envy!).

When these blocks came in I absolutely fell in love with the Barbar fabric one of my fellow quilters used…

I have not seen this fabric before and am now obsessed with getting my hands on some. It is so fabulous. This quilt top is now awaiting quilting and binding and then it will go out into the world to Do Good! I am Queen again in November and I have already started planning what block I am going to set.

29Jun2015

Mini Kaleidoscope Quilt

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Last week I looked at the bag of Lizzy House fabric scraps I had gathered in the last couple of months and I decided I needed to do something with them… a couple of hours later and I had made this little beauty…

Most of the scraps I was playing with were tiny little bits and so I designed a little, fat kaleidoscope block to make this quilt. A tiny paper pieced block allowed me to get accuracy with my piecing while being able to do some fun fussy cutting…

Each block is made up of four (4) pieces which were 1 1/2 inch square.. the finished block is 3 inches small. This was such a fun quilt to make, and I used a lot of my little white on white scraps as well as my precious Lizzy House bits.

If you are interested in making your own kaleidoscope mini quilt you can find the free paper piecing pattern here….WQ mini Kaleidoscope block.

I have signed up for one more mini quilt swap, so I warn you there will be some more paper pieced little quilts shortly.

13Feb2015

Scrap busting quilt…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This morning I managed to finish up the improv baby quilt I started last week.

I started making blocks last week as a way to take a break from doing old WIP’s (see my original post about the process) and found myself making blocks here and there as I worked on other things.

The blocks are all random improv and used up quite a nice selection of my low volume and pastel scrap stash.

There are lots of novelty prints with enough bits and pieces to play a good game of I spy (aka eye spy). But for me the most fun of this whole process was the quilting. If you follow this blog you know I am determined this year to get better at free motion quilting and this week I got some help.

Last Friday I took delivery of a wonderful Bernina 550, which I have on loan to play with and oh what a difference a good machine makes. When it came to quilting this baby up, I was excited to attach the free motion foot and stitch regulator and really play.

Now the quilting is far from perfect but it is okay and so much better than anything I have free motioned before…. and most importantly it was great fun to do. I just free motioned squares and I am now chomping at the bit to try some new things. I have dusted off my Angela Waters books and bought Christina Cameli’s new book “Step by Step Free Motion Quilting” and I am ready to get serious about this quilting thing.

17Dec2014

Continuing the catch up with curves

Posted in Quilt patterns, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

I am still playing catch up… and today’s work in progress is another project that was on my design wall before we headed to Australia… to give you a hint it all started with this…

Yep I have been making more curved blocks! It is not my fault really…you see after cutting out this quilt (you can read about the original crazy here..) I realised I had a whole collection of pink/purple quarter circles… what is a girl to do but make more blocks out of the scraps.

So I made some Drunkard paths like this…

Which became blocks like this…

So my design wall was looking like this…

I played a little with proportions on this block, making the black and white background blocks larger than the background blocks of the previous quilt. I think the solid circles hold their own well against the scrappy.

I also discovered that the smaller the circles get the harder the curved sewing becomes. This curved block is 11 inches finished, with the full circle being 8 inches in diameter.

Now of course I have a pile of black and white quarter circles, which are going to become there own quilt… yes it is a rabbit hole of curves but I already have a cunning plan for the latest scraps… I just need the time to implement it!

As it is Wednesday I am linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced…

23Jun2014

Paper piecing the Night Sky

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This weeks Paper Piecing Monday is all about the Night Sky. This week I have and will be playing with the background blocks for my Starry Night quilt. My strategy is to use all those scrap pieces of patterns I have printed and lying around the office, with most of them so far being 6 inches square.

I started last week with a half log cabin…

and this week I added some paper pieced crazy blocks….

some left over star pattern pieces from Carol Doak’s book…

some strange flower log cabin pattern I found in amongst the paper pile…

and of course there has to be some flying geese….

I have decided to go with the majority of the sky being paper pieced, as it will make piecing the quilt top together much easier. I find that piecing paper pieced blocks and traditionally pieced blocks together can be fraught with size issues and usually if there is a large enough amount of traditional piecing I remove the paper from my blocks so that everything is “paper less”. If I am just sashing blocks then the paper stays on… it is the best way to ensure accuracy.

So the sky is underway… and despite the disparate style of blocks, they seem to work together well.

Okay I admit there is an insanity to this activity but it is kind of fun. There is no right or wrong… just lots and lots of navy blue, and a smattering of purple. Quilting heaven for me.