A personal project done….

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

I recently finished up my Grey Card quilt for the Black to White quilt challenge…

I was so thrilled with how this quilt turned out, but I was aware that it was very personal to me and may not be everyone’s taste. I entered the quilt anyway in the BTW Challenge and this morning got the email that it was not chosen for the exhibit.

There were some amazing quilts made for this challenge…check out the hashtag #btwqks to see some of the other quilts made.

Instead of hanging the quilt in an exhibit it now has pride of place in our living/lounge room…

My quilt is where it should be… and I must admit I smile every time I look at it… it reminds me of what was and what now is.

19Jun2015

Rainbow Crazy

Posted in Finished Quilts, Other fun stuff, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This week I finished up my Rainbow Improv quilt just in time to ship it to Sisters for their quilt show next month….there is nothing like an impending deadline to get you working hard!

I started this quilt a little while ago, making the blocks in between some complex paper piecing projects. It was so much fun to do something so free from rules and constraints. You can read more about the process on my original post…

I just used a rainbow of solid fabric scraps and played with colour. I must admit I did not know what the end product would look like, I just enjoyed the process of making the blocks.

Because this quilt was going to Sister’s I wanted to do something modern for the quilting, but I did not want to distract from the blocks too much. In the end I went with my beloved straight line stitches but used a rainbow selection of thread for the quilting.

Each row of blocks got their own colour, which was so much fun to do.

I just used my walking foot as my line guide…I did contemplate marking up the quilt top but this was so much easier and worked out perfectly… I got 16 lines of stitches per row and only went a little off course, one or two times.

For the back of the quilt I went with a patchwork of solid Kona greys (Ash, Charcoal and Medium Grey), which was perfect for highlighting the change in the thread colour. If you look closely you can see the rainbow effect of the quilting.

The final touch was some scrappy grey binding, a label and I was done.

I am so thrilled with how this quilt turned out. It is so different from what I usually do, but was just so much fun to make…

Quilt Details:

Blocks: 6 inch improv blocks
Fabric: Variety of solids – Kona, Michael Miller, American Made and Bella.
Finished size: 48 x 48 inches

12Jun2015

One finished quilt top and one giveaway…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week, after a little procrastination. I finally finished sewing all my green stars into a quilt top…

I alternated the paper pieced blocks with 8 1/2 inch squares of low volume fabric… using mainly fabrics that had been used in the star blocks.

I sewed all the blocks together, keeping the paper on the stars. I have found if I remove the paper from the pattern before I sew everything together there can be issues making everything fit properly. There can be a lot of bias pieces in paper piecing and you want to minimize the wiggle…

When I had sewn all the stars and low volume blocks together I realized the quilt needed a border of some sort. I ended up making four flying geese blocks and interspersed them within the 3 inch border.

I love how the border and those geese bring the whole quilt together.

To celebrate finishing this quilt I thought I would do a little giveaway.

Up for grabs is this 18 fat eight cuts of fabric so you can make your own green star blocks – 12 different greens and 6 different low volumes. If you would like to win just leave a comment on this post and we will pick a winner on Monday. As always I am happy to post overseas.

THE COMPETiTION IS NOW CLOSED. Thanks.

8Jun2015

A little miscalculation…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week I finally decided on the layout for my green star quilt….and in doing so realised I was one block short! So it was back to the drawing board…literally…and a new block was designed…

This is my Outlined star…a fun little star with 32 lovely little pieces. I designed this star after staring at the other blocks on my design wall for a week or so and it seems to fit nicely into the Green star mix.

If you would like to add this star to your collection you can find a free PDF of an 8 inch pattern here….Outlined star pattern.

And here is a glimpse of what I am planning for these blocks…

I hope to have a finished quilt top to share with you on Friday…

26May2015

A flurry of butterflies….

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

Yesterday was a public holiday here in the US and I fully embraced the good weather and took the day off…. so no paper piecing Monday this week. Instead I wanted to share one of the paper piecing projects I have been working on for the last week or so…

I have been making butterfly blocks using Lizzy House fabric and tone-on-tone white scraps. My obsession with making these blocks took seed when Lizzy’s new fabric line, Natural Histories came out and included this wonderful print…I had purchased a fabulous butterfly pattern a year or so ago from Juliet at Tartan Kiwi so I went to work making blocks. The pattern, if you are interested, is only $2.50 and can be bought HERE.

The pattern is for a 5 inch butterfly and it takes four parts to make one block….

The more of these I have made the quicker the process has become. There are some small bits to the pattern but nothing to complex… and I love the end result.

For my butterfly collection I also enlarged the pattern a little. The yellow butterfly above is the 5 inch block and the green butterfly is what I got when I enlarged the pattern to take up the whole of a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.

My finished butterfly collection will have both block sizes and a fun array of colours. I am using just Lizzy House fabric and trying not to repeat any fabric…and I love how they all look.