Paper Piecing Monday Boston Edition

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week’s paper piecing blocks are in destined for the Quilts for Boston project. Last week the Boston Modern Quilt Guild put out a call for blocks, in the Boston Marathon colours, that will be made into quilts that will be “distributed those who would benefit from a show of support”.

So I grabbed some fabric…..

And went in search of some paper piecing patterns. I eventually decided to use two of the fabulous Lucky Star Block of the Month (BOM) patterns from Elizabeth at Don’t Call me Betsy. I signed up at the beginning of the year for the monthly paper piecing fix and I have been thoroughly enjoying making the patterns each month. I picked two of my favorite stars so far to make this week.

Block 1 is test block that we got in January, when the program started.

The block is made up of 8 triangle sections which give you a lot of options for playing with fabric and colour.

The second block I did was a simpler pattern from the series, but still lots of fun.

This blocks is made up of four sections and was really quick and easy to pull together.

I am hoping to get some more blocks done this week, and I will post as I finish them.

23Apr2013

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!

15Apr2013

And now for something completely different…paper piecing Monday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This paper piecing Monday is dedicated to paper piecing the English way, a technique that is used for a number of great patterns including my favorite, hexagons.

English paper piecing is the simple method of wrapping fabric around a paper/cardboard template to form shapes usually with neat crisp edges. The process involves a lot of hand sewing starting with basting of the fabric to the paper template, followed by sewing the blocks together through to hand quilting (the preferred form of quilting with hexagon quilts in particular).

I was recently introduced to this form of paper piecing at my local Modern Quilt Guild,. At the meeting we were given instructions, advice, some 1 inch hexagons, some 2 1/2 inch square cuts of fabric, a needle and thread and sent off to make hexies. I did not realize it would be so addictive, and now only a month or so later I have feverishly made 400+ hexies.

My hexagons are 1 inch (hexagons measurements are done by the length of its side) which I have found to be the perfect size for me – not so small that it is daunting and fiddly but big enough that some nice fussy cutting is possible. I started this project using hexies that I cut out myself using a template I downloaded from the web. There are some great hexagon templates on-line including Texas Freckles downloadable 1 inch and 1 1/2 inch templates that can be found here.

After calculating that I would need to cut out at least 400 hexagons I decided to get someone else to do it for me and went to Paper Pieces and ordered 500 of their pre cut hexies. Paper Pieces has an array of sizes and patterns and it is worth checking out there site if your project is going to be bigger than a pillow!

We got some great instructions on making hexagons at the meeting, but the internet has also been a wonderful resource for “how to” for me. Texas Freckles has a great video tutorial on both basting the hexagons and piecing them that you can find here. Amy at Badskits has a great illustrated PDF tutorial that you can find here. And Jaybird Quilts did a hexagon focus as part of their quilt basics series which can be found here.

Some of the most helpful tips we got at the Guild meeting were:

1. Punch a hole in your paper template. It will make removing the paper easier when the project is done.

2. Attach your fabric as firmly as you can to the template to avoid slipping when basting, as you tend to be working with a small margin of error on pieces this smalls. Some people used paper clips, some people used pins, I used the paper piercers go to – Elmer’s glue stick.

3. You can be a little messy when basting, no one will see it in the end.

One of things I love about English Paper piecing is that it is so portable. I made a big dent in my hexagon production during a long flight back from Australia recently. The kit I put together for that flight has travelled with me to Guild meetings, doctors appointments, Game of Throne screenings etc. My kit is pretty simple:

It includes:

A bobbin of white or cream cotton
A thimble
Needle and needle threader (my eyes are not what they used to be(
A paper clip and pins – just in case the glue does not stick
The smallest least threatening pair of scissors I could find (so TSA would not freak out)
My prepared hexies and my completed hexies are stored in the bottom compartment.

About a week ago, as my hexagon collection grew, I realized I did not know what I wanted to do with them all, so I started looking at both traditional and modern hexie quilts. Hexagons are believed to be one of the oldest pieced patterns, with hexagon templates for quilts having been found in England dating back to he 1770’s. With such a long history and the modern resurgence I had a lot to think about.

After much umming and ahhing I decided I wanted to so something modern that tipped its hat to the past. I love the depression era hexagon quilts and in particular the flower patterns that were prevalent and so settled on doing a version of that pattern. My first experiment was this block.

I was going to put a border of white hexies around the block (as is done in many traditional quilts) but I thought it was not quite modern enough for me. In the end I went with this.

I love the black and white center. It makes the colour of the flowers seem so much more vibrant and modern. I have pieced together 9 flowers so far and I am loving it. I am learning so much as I make this quilt including:

1. That my stitches (I am using a whip stitch to piece) is what is holding these hexagons together so I have to make my stitches small. I am trying to get about 10 stitches per 1 inch side, though I am not always successful at that.

2. Unlike basting the hexagons, with the piecing your stitches need to be neater.

3. It is not going to be perfect and if some stitches are showing slightly it is okay. When you look at this quilt you will know that it is hand stitched, which is a good thing.

4. I may only have one of these in me and this is a quilt I am keeping!

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.