100 Quilts for Kids

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

It is my favorite time of the year… and I am a little late to the party this year. It is the 100 Quilts for Kids drive which this year is being hosted by Quilts in the Queue. 100 Quilts for Kids is an annual charity quilt drive to encourage quilters to make a quilt, donate it to a child in need, and be entered for fabulous prizes for their efforts. In 2015, 100 Quilts for Kids will run from August 1st-September 30th. When you have finished a quilt you add it to the Link party to be entered.

For me it is not about winning a prize (though that is nice), I use this drive as a kick up the butt to finish up quilts for Project Linus. So to kick off this years Quilts for Kids run I finished up these two beauties…

I used the Gigantic Fancy Fox pattern by Elizabeth Hartman. I love this pattern, it was so easy to finish up a baby quilt in no time…. so I made one in pink and one in blue.

A selection of Kona solids, some simple quilting, a single cloth back and I have two lovely quilts to drop off at Project Linus this week. The quilts finish up at 30 x 36 inches which is a great size for a baby.

So for the next couple of weeks I will be trying to finish up as many of my work in progress quilts which I have been procrastinating about and encourage you to do the same. Make a simple quilt or dust off some old WIPs or orphan blocks and finish a quilt or two for a Kids charity in your area.

28Aug2015

Continuing my Lizzy House infatuation…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Last week I managed to finish up my Constellation quilt, which is currently winging its way to its new home in Indiana.

I started this quilt a while ago, after I got my hands on some treasured pieces of Lizzy House’s Constellation line. I have been a big fan of Ms. Houses for a while now…she designs the most fun novelty fabric. I love her bright colour choices and graphic illustrations… and I do not just use them in my charity quilts for kids, I try to sneak Pearl Bracelets into nearly every quilt I make!

I loved the blues and touch of purple of this line and it was so easy to put this quilt together using just the Constellation fabric line, some Pearl Braceletss and a few supporting solids.

I paper pieced the six-inch cross blocks… you can find the free pattern here.

To quilt this baby up I just used my walking foot and followed the lines of the crosses. I love how the quilting echoes the crosses, while adding a nice grid pattern to the quilt.

I wanted some denser quilting on this quilt, as it is for my new nephew, Tobias…and I knew from the experience of his big brother’s quilt, that this quilt needed to be able to stand up to pretty constant washing and hardy wear and tear.

For the back of the quilt I used three different Lizzy House prints…two of which are from her recent Natural History range. These fabrics just worked perfectly with the front… and I could not resist sneaking this marvelous gem print into the quilt.

Now I must warn you this is only one of several Lizzy House quilts I have been working on. I am slightly addicted to Lizzy’s fabrics and am eagerly awaiting her new line, A lovely Hunt, in September… it has unicorns in it!

Quilt Details:

Name: Constellation Crosses
Pattern: Paper Pieced cross blocks
Fabric: Lizzy House Constellations
Finished size: 36 x 42 inches

24Aug2015

A growing EPP obsession…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Over the last couple of weeks I have been gallivanting to a wedding in Southern California, traipsing around Disneyland and teaching a bunch of wonderful 8 to 10 years old sew doll clothes. It has been fun and action packed, but there has been only a sprinkling of quilting… and all of it has been English paper piecing.

My go to travel project has become my new obsession… For the California trip I packed my mini Liberty dresden kit…

… I managed to get quite a few dresdens blades done while sitting on the plane or by the pool…

… I have become a little obsessed with finding little scraps of Liberty to add to this project…

… and I really do mean mini scraps. I can get two blades easily from a 2 1/2 inch square!

My other ongoing summer travel project, my hexagon pelt, has gone with me to games nights, picnics and camping….

I grab this kit regularly when we are heading ona long drive or out to events… just in case I get time to baste a few hexies….

I also have just started basting some mini Cotton and Steel hexies. I had so many little scraps of fabric left over after making a couple of Cotton and Steel mini quilts for the swap (check out the post here to see two of them) that could not got to waste so…

The C+S hexagons were made from scraps that were too small for my main hexagon pelt (main pelt hexie size is 1 inch)…

Now three EPP projects on the go at the same time might seem excessive, but I am sure I can handle a couple more…. you see, last week for my birthday I got these books…

..and the July copy of Love Patchwork and Quilting which had this free gift with it…

…plus I also discovered that you can use the EQ7 quilting program to print out quilt blocks in segments….. I think my obsession with hand work may have only just started…

5Aug2015

Re-purposing Challenge Fabric

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts by wombatquilts

Last year the Modern Quilt Guild did a fabric challenge using Michael Miller fabric. If you follow me you will have seen a few quilts with this fabric in it, including my own Challenge entry. When our Guild handed out the fabric to its members we said that if anyone was so inclined they could use their Challenge scraps to make some blocks for the charity program. This is one of the resulting quilts…

This beautiful quilt was pieced and quilted by the wonderful Cris Pera, who is this years Guild Programs Co-ordinator.

Cris took the Michael Miller Challenge blocks and made this darling sampler quilt… using white sashing to bring the blocks together.

The blocks are all so different and there is so much amazing piecing in each block…

But I love how they all come together to make a lovely coherent quilt because they are all using the same fabric line. There should be at least one more of these quilts finished up by the end of the year…fingers crossed!

4Aug2015

Kelly’s Quilt in the spotlight…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

In the continuing showcase of Portland Modern Quilt Guild’s charity quilts, today’s quilt is Kelly’s Quilt.

This bright, fun, scrappy improv quilt was made at our Guild’s March Charity Sew Day. During the course of the day the group took a huge box of bright, kid friendly scraps and a handful of stray orphan blocks cut them up and turned it all into a pile of 12 inch blocks.

The quilt got its name during the Sew Day when this block went up on the design wall…

Joy, one of our members commented that the girl in this block looked liked one of my fellow Board members from last year, Kelly. Everyone agreed and the quilt was then referred to all day as Kelly’s quilt.

In the spirit of improv and anything goes, the top grew into a loud riot of novelty print fun…

When it came time to quilting this top, it fell, of course to none other than its name sake, Kelly Cole of Blue Bird Sews. As soon as she knew the quilt was named after her, Kelly felt she had to quilt it.

And boy did she quilt it. Kelly did a wonderful job free motion quilting a different pattern into each block…

The end result is one of the most fun games of eye spy ever in a quilt. I love the riot of colour and texture of this quilt. You know it is going to make some kid extremely happy.