An almost finished Friday

Last night I finally finished pulling all the paper off my floral crackers quilt. 80 blocks, 79 different floral fabrics and 1/2 a ton of paper later I have this beauty.

There was finally a break in the rain this morning, so I dashed out to take this photo. Not perfect conditions but I was glad for any sort of respite from the deluge.

Enough about the weather… back to quilting. The top is made using the traditional cracker quilt block. I paper piece this top but you can find links to making the pattern on my original post here.

I used as many bright multi-coloured floral fabrics as I could find and only accidentally doubled up on one fabric. There is a lot of Kaffe Fassett in this quilt along with Amy Butler and Denyse Schmidt.

I used random black and white fabric for the background of the pattern but if I was to make this quilt again I would probably go with a low volume fabric option with more colour in it. Don’t get me wrong, I like the black and white but I think in hindsight more colour in the background would have made a different type of quilt top.

This quilt already has a home to go to. I have till the middle of June to get it finished, so it can be presented to a graduating foster kid in the Portland area. Project Linus every year makes sure kids graduating from the foster system & high school have a quilt to take with them on the next stage of their life.

But for now I am off to clean up the paper mess I have made…. it is the curse of paper piecing!

I am linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for their finished Friday… I think a finished quilt top counts right!

17May2013

Oh what a week

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

After last week’s spring clean I felt so refreshed and energized, and it is reflected in the fun I have had this week. The highlight of the week has to have been having Jacquie Gering of Tallgrass Prairie Studios talk at the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. I love the freedom of Jacquie’s quilts and am sooo inspired by seeing her quilts in person and hearing her talk. I can not wait to cut my poppy quilt up and try to make something modern and different from it. Stay tuned.

This week I also managed to finish a quilt. Surprising I know, but I felt I had to get something completed. So here it is…

This quilt started a little while ago with this modern Ohio star block (posted here)….

And it grew into this fun bright quilt. Once again with the block you can see the star pattern, but with the quilt you see so much more (mainly lots and lots of triangles!).

I struggled for a couple of weeks over the backing of this quilt. I pulled out and prepared a couple of printed fabric choices but nothing seemed to work just right for me. Then I woke up yesterday morning with the perfect solution. I grabbed some solids and little bit of quilters linen and made this backing piece.

I decided to quilt along several of the block seams to really highlight the triangles in the pattern. I used lime green thread so that you could really see the quilting on the back. I do not usually do this, but in the spirit of new things, I gave it a try.

It does mean that you can see a couple of my not so straight lines but I am embracing the imperfections.

I am entering this quilt in the Bloggers Quilt Festival in the two colour category. It is the first time I have entered a quilt and the quality of the quilts entered is amazing. Check out the site, in particular their quilters focus, for some amazing inspiration.

Now I am off to do some more quilting. I have a stack of quilts that unfortunately are not going to finish themselves… unless someone will lend me some quilting elves!

3May2013

An abundancy of turquioise

Posted in Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This month there are a couple of resolutions in our house, that may or may not work. Firstly my husband thought it would be a good idea if we did not eat any processed sugar during May. I do not remember agreeing to this at all, but it seems that sugar is off the menu. If the posts get erratic, the colours get to bright or I stop making sense, it is because I am suffering withdrawals.

The second resolution for May was to finish up more of the quilt tops I have floating around. This resolution came about as I finished another two quilt tops this week and the pile of UFOs grew to an embarrassing level. More quilting less piecing. Combine this resolution with the other one and it could be an interesting month!

Anyway the two tops I finished up this week are both from the same pattern…. I blogged them originally here. I used this pattern…

..to make this quilt.

This was a fun scrap quilt to make – lots of turquoise, navy (my favorite colour) and pink/purple. I really like this colour combination, which I stumbled across while playing with my piles of fabric.

The other quilt top I finished was my 1001 Peeps top.

I was battling the wind when I was taking these photos. It is the problem of photographing tops as opposed to full quilts – there is no weight to hold them in place in even a gentle breeze.

It is another reason why I have to quilt these suckers before I post. I see a lot of basting in my near future!

26Apr2013

A Trip around

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Like a lot of quilters out there, I have been seeing Trip Around quilts and blocks on-line for ages and ages. I had seen some amazing versions but I had never really thought about making one myself… then the Portland Modern Quilting Guild set it as one of their charity blocks. That is when the trouble started.

First I checked out the pattern instructions from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltsville. Looked easy enough. My initial intention was to make just on block for the charity quilt so I cut 6 strips of fabric and made this.

What was not included in the instructions was how addictive this process was. My one block very quickly and easily grew to be this.

Lots of black & whites mixed with loud obnoxious colours makes for a fun quilt.

I backed the quilt with some Ikea fabric, did some diagonal quilting and machine bound it. I had never bound anything with solid black before but I think it works well with this quilt.

I am digitally adding my Trip to the growing collection out there on the web and then sending the real thing off to Project Linus for some one to snuggle under.

And in the spirit of Trip Around… here is visual trip around my quilting space (also known as our Living Room) as it looks this morning.

That is… wip on the floor… fabric on the table waiting to be cut…. batting waiting to be used…. and my hexies work station on the couch/sofa arm. Yes I am a messy quilter.

12Apr2013

The joy of 5 inch squares.

Posted in Finished Quilts, Project Linus, Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Last year I had a brief period of time when I had some back issues that meant that sitting was not a fun thing to do. I decided that, seeing I could not sit at a sewing machine, I would cut fabric. For weeks I cut 5 inch squares out of my scraps and stash. The end result was hundreds and hundreds of 5 inch squares. Now all I had to do was find ways to use them.

My first step was to make a pile of simple baby quilts for Project Linus which played with colour (please excuse the dodgy i-phone photos).

This year I have got a little more creative with the squares, while still keeping it simple. First I used the squares as the basis for my wonky star quilt which you can see here. I then used the left over bits and pieces of that quilt (plus some left over scrappy white squares) to make this.

The 5 inch squares were used for the center pieces of the block, the background of the quilt plus I cut a number of the squares diagonally and used these triangles to make the star points. Wonky star quilts really are so ridiculously easy.

The latest quilt I used my 5 inch squares on is my extra-large granny square quilt, which I have just finished.

With this quilt I just lay the blocks down diagonally to make the pattern, sewed the blocks together then trimmed the extra edges and it was ready to go. Again ridiculously easy.

With both these quilts I did a simple straight quilting, running down both sides of the “ditch”.

The backing for both these quilts is from Ikea. The granny squares got the most fabulous fun lips fabric as it’s back (yes the photo is upside down!)

And for the wonky stars I went with a simple black & white music note fabric.

What I love about Ikea fabrics is their width. You can easily piece larger kids quilts with one piece of fabric plus their prints are really fun. Both these quilts are now finally finished and ready for delivery this month to Project Linus.