Jacaranda inspired wip Wednesday

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

This week I have been working on a quilt that was inspired by the Jacaranda tree and in particular the silk screen print my brother-in-law did. The print has been sitting in my quilting room, waiting to be framed, and this week I thought the colours would work well for a quilt.

I played with the idea of purple with black & white fabrics, but felt I have been overusing my b/w stash. Instead I went with greys and choose a pattern that reminded me of a tree (but ended up looking like an arrow!). The end result of my test run was this collection of blocks.

I think I am going to have fun with this one. I have made some grey/grey blocks and some purple/purple blocks and can not wait to start playing with some random layouts. My husband wanted me to put some order into the layout – he is a science geek and loves there to be pattern, even if it is hidden. Me, I love random when I can get it. I think that is why I love scrap quilting so much, it allows for random in amongst the pattern.

The pattern is a free paper piecing pattern from Christine Thresh which can be found here. I just pulled the gif from the site and sized it up in Photoshop.

I also managed this weekend to finish a couple quilt tops that I had lying around. The first one is the 1001 Peeps top I started a last week. It was quick, easy and fun to make. Now all I have to do is quilt it and bind it.

The other top I finished was not so quick and easy… I have been trying to finish it for weeks. It was a little more fiddly than some of my other patterns but worth the effort. I still have to pull all the paper off the back but I have trained my husband up to help with this process, so it should be quick.

I am trying to train myself to not start a new project until I have finished one of my old ones. The question then becomes, does finishing a top count or do I only count quilted and bound projects?

9Apr2013

Triangle love – wip Wednesday

Posted in Quilt patterns, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week I have been playing with triangles just to try something different. Some months back I bought a triangle ruler after seeing some many fabulous triangle quilts on-line. I promptly came home and cut stacks of fabric and made my first triangle quilt.

The finished quilt was cute but far from perfect. The blocks did not line up exactly which annoyed me no end, and it was more time-consuming than I had thought it would be. I put the triangle ruler away in a drawer and moved on.

Fast forward 6 months and I had the urge to try triangles again. This time I found a paper piecing pattern in my copy of “Modern Blocks” which I scanned and amended a little. The end result was blocks that looked like this.

I love this pattern. It can easily be done free hand, using a triangle ruler and 1 1/2 inch strips. I have been playing with this block over the last couple of days using two different kinds of fabric from my stash. The above blocks are part of my scrappy quilt, which is coming together like this.

I love the olive and hot pink colour combination, but I did discover that my stash has a disturbing lack of bright pink. There is a trip to the fabric store in my future to rectify the situation. I also took this pattern and tried it out with some Denyse Schmdit fabrics I had in my stash.

I am not totally sure about this version of the block. I like the idea of using just one print in the middle with appropriate fabrics for the outside sashing but I think I may need a stronger central print. What do you think?

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?

3Apr2013

Square in Square fun – wip Wednesday

Posted in Quilt patterns, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week I have been playing with the “square in square” quilt block (also known as a diamond in a square block). I stumbled across the pattern on the weekend and decided that I had to see what I could do with it. The first experiment is with colour – navy, emerald and pink/purple.

I am excited about how this quilt is coming together. The colours work well together and the pattern allows me to use those scraps I love so much! To make the square in square blocks I used the paper piecing pattern below. There is some good instructions on how to make this block using traditional piecing on the web, including some great instructions from Why not Sew? which you can find here.

I also used this simple pattern this week to start a 1001 Peeps quilt. I have a stash of Lizzy House fabric including quite a collection of her Arabian Nights themed fabric. I have used little bits and pieces here and there but I wanted to use one of the lines colorways to make a quilt for Project Linus. It is such fabulous kids fabric.

This pattern makes it easy to use fussy cut bits and pieces. I love how it really frames the wonderful prints in this range. I am half way through making these blocks and the quilt is coming together so quickly. I have used a few prints that are not from the line including some tone on tone fabrics and a couple of prints from other Lizzy House lines. Too much fun.

I am now off to buy a new ironing board. We somehow managed to put a hole in ours which is making ironing and quilting a little more challenging than it should be!

1Apr2013

Paper Piecing Monday with a twist

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

Today’s paper piecing block is a tiny bit different. At last month’s Portland Modern Quilting Guild we were given a sampling of Michael Miller’s fabulous new Neon range. It was love at first sight. The fabric came with the challenge to make a 12 1/2 block or a sewn item out of just the Neon line and Couture cotton bits we were given. After pre-washing the solid fabrics I lay out my Neon bits and played. I do not usually wash my fabric before I use it, but the intensity of the dye to get the neon colours means that pre-washing is a necessity for the solids in this line.

After lots of arranging and re-arranging I came up with this block.

The pattern is the Connecticut star from Carol Doak’s “50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars” (my favorite book at the moment but I promise I will move on soon!). I played with the pattern in the book a little, to get the effect I wanted. I am relishing the freedom that these paper piecing patterns encourage.

I LOVE THIS BLOCK!

I have such fond memories of the 1980’s, they were pretty good years for me, bad hair and questionable dress sense aside. I swear I had a shirt back then that was in the same fabric as the center part of the star!

I had so much fun with this fabric line that I just ordered more Neon from Fabric.com. Please don’t tell my husband!