My highlights from the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show

Posted in Other fun stuff by wombatquilts

I beg your indulgence as I replace this week’s Paper Piecing Monday with a selection of highlights from my weekend at the Sister’s Outdoor Quilt Show. First up has to be…

The firemen putting up the quilts. We arrived early (around 7.45am) to set up the PMQG bits and pieces for the show and managed to see quite a few of the quilts go up.

This was my first time to the Sister’s Show and I was blown away by the volume of quilts. Everywhere you look there were quilts hanging from building… over a thousand of them in total.

What follows is a smattering of the quilts that caught my eye on Saturday, starting with some of the PMQG quilts…

: Ann Marie Cowley’s Pantone Quilt

: Cheri Langley’s Converging Corners Quilt

And on the other side of the building Elizabeth Hartman’s new Sampler quilt was hanging…

There were modern quilts scattered all over town including…

: Parts Department by Jeanette Pilak

: Untitled by Maren Johnson

This quilt is made up of the same little block, the detail is just amazing….

: Detail of Lines and Spaces by Carol Webb

: Detail of Teal Zeal by Elizabeth Beck

In the air-conditioned library (it got close to 100 degrees outside) local quilt artists Wendy Hill and Pat Pease had an exhibition of their amazing work…

And the Central Oregon Modern Quilt Guild had a wonderful exhibition of its members quilts, which all used the Ohio Star block in the most wonderful ways including Katy’s Camp Fire Ohio Star…

and this wonderful quilt with the Ohio Star printed onto the quilt… genius!

: Ohio Wedding by Christy Merrit

Scattered around town there were a number of quilts that used denims in their construction including…

: Aerial View by Diana Jacks

The details in this quilt are amazing..

I can not imagine piecing such a thick fabric let alone quilting it… but Diane Jackson managed to do the most amazing quilting on her piece “Red Square”.

: Detail of Red Square by Diane Jackson

Animals were also well represented in the show with my favorites being this fellow…

and Elizabeth Hartman’s Liberty Fox quilt…

There were of course hundreds of more classic quilts including the fabulously scrappy…

: Pineapples for Joanne by Jane Jensen Davis

: Poppy Blaze Big Bang by Sheree Lloyd

As well as some beautiful vintage quilts….

But my favorite of the show has to be this beauty…

: Under the Waves by Malleva Abenes

It is a seriously amazing quilt… and that wave… wow….

To finish up I leave you with our Modern Quilters group shot. Towards the end of the day a group of modern quilters from all over gathered to say hi before scattering to the wind…

9Jul2014

Wee Wanders WIP Wednesday

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

This week I have been playing with a selection of the Wee Wander’s fabric range by Michael Miller. I love this fabric and have had a blast playing this week.

Using the fabric for inspiration I pulled supporting fabric from my stash and ended up with this lovely bundle.

As soon as I bought the Wee Wanders, I knew what block I wanted to use – the Rolling Stone Block which dates back to the late 19th century…

I found this block, and great instructions on the Dont’ Call me Betsy site. I went with the traditional block layout but no matter what layout you use, it is an easy block that is made up of three units.

1. A single fabric square… perfect for highlighting the wonderful fussy cut horses …

2. A block made up of a rectangle of your chosen neutral (for me it was Kona Snow) and a rectangle of your coloured fabric. This was a great opportunity for me to chain piece, something I do not often get to do…

3. A square in square block, that is paper pieced, but can be done traditionally as well. For my blocks I removed the paper from this unit before I sewed the block together (a first for me, but it worked perfectly).

These units are then laid out to make a finished 12 1/2 inch block. I must admit for my block I enlarged the block slightly to room for the horse blocks. My unfinished block is 14 1/2 inches square.

This week the weather here in Portland has been gloriously hot and I have not got as much of this quilt done as I would have liked. I have three blocks completed…

and…

and as the design wall shows, a number in process.

I am determined today not to be distracted by the sun…or the cat… of the World Cup. AUGH!

27Jun2014

Look what I have finally got done…

Posted in Finished Quilts, Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

… yes I finally got my red and aqua stars into a presentable form… a finished quilt top….I can hear the gasps of surprise from here…

These stars were the product of my first Paper Piecing Monday adventures. I loved putting them together each week, challenging myself to make some complex and amazing stars.

Some of the stars were free patterns from Quilting on the Square (you can find the links to the specific patterns under my Free Paper Piecing Patterns tabs) and others were from Carol Doak’s book 50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars.

So in the end I had 20 amazing 12 inch paper pieced stars and no real plan what to do with them. After an online survey last year, it was decided that navy sashing did the best job of showing off each and every star to its best, so a plan was hatched. Fast forward a few months (possibly more) and after auditioning a few navy fabrics and ended up using Robert Kaufman’s Quilters Linen in navy. It was perfect the job.

So now all that is left is to remove the paper… which will be quite a task as some of these suckers are really complex…

Then it is off to a long armer for quilting. At no point did I contemplate ruining this gorgeous quilt top with my quilting. It deserves the best…plus the finished quilt is going to my Mum so I want it to be amazing.

25Jun2014

A smattering of quilt blocks…

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

I can not believe that June is nearly over…. this year is slipping away way to fast. It was with a small amount of panic that I realised this week that I was running out of time to finish up some of my Bee blocks, so armed with a pile of fabric, my iPad and a caffeine enriched beverage I set to work.

First up was the June blocks for my Do.good.Stitches bee…

The block is a great log cabin variation…Though one block does not look that exciting, put four of them together and you get a fabulous orb pattern…

While we are on the subject of Do.good.Stitches Bee blocks, here is May’s blocks which were a blast to make…

I have not done a cross block before and loved how easy it was to do. I got a little carried away with this block and made a few extra. I used Rachel from Wooden Spoons easy dimensions to make the block…plus lots of starch!

The final lot of Bee blocks I got done this week is a repeat of a block I did last year….

Yep the mini flying geese crazy is back. This month it was Stephanie from Quarter Incher’s turn to be Queen of our ScrapBeeLicous Bee, and she choose the Liesl Made’s Flying Geese Block. Yipee….

So I retooled my paper piecing pattern and set to work raiding my scrap stash. I actually think the only way to make this kind of quilt is to do it as part of a Bee (and to paper piece ti!). There is no way you want to be making more than a few of these blocks… okay there is no way I could make more than a few of these blocks and remain sane!

As it is Wednesday there is only one thing left to do….link up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

23Jun2014

Paper piecing the Night Sky

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This weeks Paper Piecing Monday is all about the Night Sky. This week I have and will be playing with the background blocks for my Starry Night quilt. My strategy is to use all those scrap pieces of patterns I have printed and lying around the office, with most of them so far being 6 inches square.

I started last week with a half log cabin…

and this week I added some paper pieced crazy blocks….

some left over star pattern pieces from Carol Doak’s book…

some strange flower log cabin pattern I found in amongst the paper pile…

and of course there has to be some flying geese….

I have decided to go with the majority of the sky being paper pieced, as it will make piecing the quilt top together much easier. I find that piecing paper pieced blocks and traditionally pieced blocks together can be fraught with size issues and usually if there is a large enough amount of traditional piecing I remove the paper from my blocks so that everything is “paper less”. If I am just sashing blocks then the paper stays on… it is the best way to ensure accuracy.

So the sky is underway… and despite the disparate style of blocks, they seem to work together well.

Okay I admit there is an insanity to this activity but it is kind of fun. There is no right or wrong… just lots and lots of navy blue, and a smattering of purple. Quilting heaven for me.