Oh the plans I had…

Posted in Quilts by wombatquilts

This week has been a lost week for me. I got smacked hard by the Flu and have not sewn or been near fabric since Monday..yep I have been that sick! I had so many plans for this week… so many things that needed to get finished. Oh well.

I was going to just write this blogging week off as well, but for some reason, in my Flu state, I thought it would be a good idea to share the quilt top I finished a little while ago. It is a quilt top that I was not originally going to post pictures of, as my husband had declared it the “ugliest” quilt he had ever seen. Now emboldened by an assortment of cold and flu medication here goes…

Now in defense of this top, it was made using a bunch of unloved orphan blocks from the PMQG charity drive. There are some lovely blocks in the top, but overall the colour scheme is not me.

Putting the top together I took apart some blocks, cut up others and generally took liberties. I just loved the challenge of seeing if I could make this work somehow.

In hindsight I think I would approach the task differently and use more negative space… putting in solid fabrics instead of some of the cut down blocks. Next time… and there will be a next time because there are more of these orphan blocks.

So on this Friday I say it is time for the ugly quilts to come out of the closet. Share your fuglies. Photography them. Facebook them. Instagram them. Let them have their moment in the sun.

Okay I am now going back to bed with my tissues and my Dayquil.

14Apr2014

Paper Piecing Monday #opgivewarmth

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Welcome to a special Paper Piecing Monday. Recently the fabulous Sarah @ nohatsinthehouse set up a wonderful Bee like charity drive called #opgivewarmth. The general idea is that each month Sarah will set a colour palette and each month you can send in a block or blocks to her using any of the colours on the palette.

April is the first month for this endeavor and Sarah set this palette for the challenge

I love all these colours separately and there are some fabulous colour combinations in this palette (pink, red and tan is a personal favorite). In a moment of insanity I thought I would do some paper piecing blocks with ALL these colours included. The result was…

This fabulously trippy star block is a free pattern from Piece by Numbers called Indian Summer. There are two different layouts for this pattern and you can find it at Craftsy. This block is so weird but it is growing on me!

Sarah requested blocks in increments of 3 inches. My trippy star is 12 x 12 inch and just for a bit of variety I made up a couple of 3 x 6 inch blocks…

I was going to sew these blocks together to make 6 x 6 blocks but after making a couple of sampler quilts myself I know it is important to have some flexibility with blocks. So I am going to send the flying geese as is, and Sarah can use them as she needs.

You can find the pattern for this block at Quilers Cache in a variety of different sizes. I think the next time I may choose just to use a selection of the colours… but then again I do love a challenge!

And if you are a paper piecing fan you should check out Sarah’s work…her quilts regularly make my jaw drop.

28Feb2014

Tula Pink Friday

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I managed to get my Tula Pink quilt basted, quilted and bound. Yipee. This quilt has been a work in process since May last year…I would do a few blocks here and there when the mood took me, till I had 30 blocks ready to go.

I actually got the quilt top finished during the snow storm a few weeks ago but it took me another couple of weeks to get her basted and then quilted. I am beginning to notice that I am not as fast to baste and quilt as I am to piece. Okay I admit it I love to piece quilt tops…quilt them, not so much. Anyway I soldiered through and this was the result….

I love the blocks and that Tula Pink City Sampler blocks are a great project to dip in and out of.

Some of the blocks are really simple and easy, others a little more complex. I did not do some of the crazier blocks in the book…I am leaving those to the next quilt…

When it came time to quilt my top up I decided to got with a light grey thread for quilting. In hindsight I maybe should have stuck with white as the quilting is really highlighted which creates two issues for me…

1. It distracts from the pretty blocks I think…and

2. It highlights that my quilting may not be completely straight.

It was a huge learning experience for me and I think the quilt still looks cute, despite my missteps. It is backed with some lovely Lotta Jansdotter fabric from her “Echo” line.

And hand bound with two different Kona cotton pinks… scraps I had left over from another project.

I am definitely making a blue version of this quilt so I can do more blocks from the book and so I can slip in the Tardis block. I will take what I learnt from this quilt and apply it wisely.

17Feb2014

Paper Piecing Monday overload

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Today’s paper piecing Monday is a “three for the price of one” deal. I got a little carried away doing my neon blocks last week and thought I would share all the blocks I made. First up is…

A flying geese block, of sorts. I wanted a graphic block that was not a star and this is where I ended up. I think you can have a lot of fun with this block, depending on how you choose to colour it and lay it out.

It is a pretty simple block and you can find the paper piecing pattern here…Neon Lost Geese. Next up I did another graphic block…

I know I am going to revisit this block because I am dying to make this pattern with a more scrappy approach and fussy cut centers. Too much fun. I have made a 6 x 6 inch pattern for this block, Neon Square block but I think I will enlarge the block for my scrappy version.

The last neon block I made this week was a re-do of a paper piecing pattern I made last year…

Yep I revisited the marvelous Julie @ 627Handwork’s Marley block. You can find the free pattern here. This pattern is fabulously bold, geometric and perfect for this quilt sampler. I now have only two more blocks to go before I can finish this quilt up.

10Feb2014

A Feathered Starry Night

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week I am quickly jumping back into my Starry Night quilt, mainly because I think I am close to having all the blocks I want/need…plus I am slightly addicted to the blue-yellow contrast. The result of the weekends playing was this star…

We were snowed in this weekend which allowed me to play a little. I designed this pattern, a copy of which you can find here Starry Night Feathered but instead of printing it out as I usually do, I thought I would give tracing paper a go. So I traced my pattern on the paper, using a good old-fashioned pencil and ruler. This is definitely the down side to tracing paper. I had previously tried to get my inkjet printer to take the extra thin tracing paper but it was not having any of it.

So the advantages of tracing paper are…

(1) it is thin enough that lining up your fabric is easy

(2) the thinness of the paper also means that you get less bulk where seams meet and

(3) my stitches had less give when the paper is remove and the paper was easier to remove.

The downside…

(1) if you can not get it to print on your printer, tracing the pattern is a laborious task

(2) I missed the extra sturdiness that photocopy paper gives your pattern, particularly when sewing the pattern pieces together. My pattern kept flopping over and moving.

(3) it is more expensive per sheet and not as easy to find as photocopy paper.

Okay the experiment is over and so is the snow. I am going to stick with photocopy paper… and go back to using my sheets of cardboard as a background to my blocks instead of wonderful snow.