The silence…

Posted in Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

Not long after I wrote my last blog post a funny thing happened… I bumped my head. At the time it smarted and I felt a little weird but I continued on with my day. By that evening I knew that something was not right.

I managed to hit my head in a strange place and a little harder than I thought and as a consequence I gave myself a severe concussion. Now this was not my first head injury… many years ago I managed to knock my head about quite badly in a car accident. My recent concussion, as a second injury, has been more severe and lasted longer.

So for the last couple of weeks I have been struggling. For 10 days I did not watch or listen to anything…. that was hard slog and very very boring. I am still being treated under what is termed “concussion protocol”. It has taken me a couple of weeks to get my words back… it is easier for my to type than to speak, but both hurt. It really does seem as if the universe is conspiring against my efforts to blog… just saying….

Sick of being bored and feeling decidedly better, this week I dusted off the sewing machine and I started slowly trying to get back into it. I can not sew for too long and can not do anything to complex (my butterflies are currently on hold). Instead I grabbed my huge pile of mini charm squares (2 1/2 inch squares) and started playing.

concussion-block

I found the pattern for this block on the Fat Quarter Shop site. They have a free pattern that you can print out called Sisters Choice… and you can find it here. Their quilt is monochromatic and uses solids but it works just as well with prints and scraps I think.

So my design wall currently looks like this…

design-wall

…messy and chaotic, a little like my brain…but slowly it will get better… less chaotic… more succinct… but it will always be full of colour.

6Sep2016

Quilts of love…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I managed to finish up two very special quilts. If you are a member of the Modern Quilt Guild you may have heard of the Quilts for Pulse drive. After the tragic shooting in June at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida a member of the Orland Modern Quilt Guild, Alissa Lapinsky put out a call for rainbow heart blocks. She wanted to make quilts for families of the victims.

The call for help from Alissa gave me, and some of my friends, the opportunity to do something in a situation where you usually feel as if there is nothing you can do to help. So one weekend in June Lisa, Sara, Kristie and I got together and made a quilt…

I had a tonne of pre-cut 5 inch squares in hundreds of different colours – I am getting in the habit of cutting my scraps into usable sizes and had just cut a pile of my solid scraps into squares. So we sorted the squares into colour order and started playing. The end result looked like this…

We pieced this beautiful top, working together, in a day. It was so much fun to make this top with friends and it was so good to do something positive in the days following the tragedy. It then took me a little while to get it on the long arm at Modern Domestic.

This was the biggest quilt I had every long armed and I must admit I got a little crazy somewhere in the middle of it… my hearts got a little loopy but the overall effect is not too bad.

I went with a pieced black and white quilt back to counteract the bright loud front of the quilt…

The three sets of feet you can see under the quilt are our husbands. The boys helped hold the quilt while we photographed it…. and as one of those boys is over 6 foot it gives you an idea of how big the quilt finished up.

We finished the quilt off with a label from Story Patches, who kindly donated labels to many quilters making Pulse Quilts. I had not used one of these patches before but it was perfect for this quilt. If you have not seen Story Patches they allow you to download message about your quilt using photos, audio and/or video. There is a QR code on the label that can be scanned so the receiver of the quilt can see the story behind making the quilt. We downloaded a message and some photos of the day we spent making the quilt.

This quilt has now joined the hundreds of other quilts and blocks that have been sent to Orlando. I doubt that Alissa knew that she would get the amazing response she did. Thanks to efforts of the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild, the quilting community has flooded Orlando with love, support and quilts.

19Aug2016

Yipee a finish…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This summer has been a little crazy, but in amongst it all I have managed to finish up some quilts including this fun one…

postage stamp quilt

This is my second postage stamp quilt using Rita from Red Pepper Quilts technique. It is really an easy way to get all these little 1 1/2 inch squares sewn together. To make it easier on myself, every time I cut out a quilt or have some scraps I will cut a 2 x 7 inch strip and put it in a shoe box. Over the course of a couple of months that shoe box fills up.

postage stamp quilt detail

When you are working this small I do not worry about fussy cutting but focus mainly on colour….making sure I have some darks and lights as well as lots of white in my prints… That said you can still play a great game of I Spy with this quilt…

quilt detail

I did have some fun with the quilting on this piece. For the first time I used one a quilting template…

I have picked up a couple of these things over the years but never ever used them before… for this quilt I picked a waved pattern and using my trust Frixon bravely drew all over the quilt top.

quilt detail 2

Now my quilting is not perfect but it was a fun exercise. More than anything it was good for practicing this circular technique which is used a bit in free motion. It is going to take a bit more practice before I am even remotely proficient but it was a fun exercise. I even got to bust out my Bernina stitch regulator…

quilting detail

Do not look to closely because even with a drawn line my quilting is very wonky… but from a distance it all looks fine…

quilt

For the back of the quilt I found a lovely Alexander Henry print in my stash that worked perfectly…

quilt back detail

Some solid Kona navy binding and a label and this beauty is ready to head off into the world… hopefully it will bring a smile to some kids face.

My scrap shoe box is already half full (after a busy scrap cutting session last week) so there will be another one of these in my future I am sure.

25Jul2016

Liberty Butterflies

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

It has been a while since I have done a Paper Piecing Monday post, as I have not been doing as much paper piecing lately…. but this week I started a fun little project…. Liberty Butterflies.

butterfly block 2

Everyday I am making one butterfly, just to so I am keeping my paper piecing skills sharp!

butterfly block 1

The pattern I am using for these darling 5 inch butterflies is a free one from Lillyella… and you can find the pattern for all three of Nicole’s butterflies here...

butterfly block detail

These blocks are a great way to use up some of my little scraps of Liberty… it does not take too much fabric to make a butterfly.

butterfly quilt block detail

I am not sure what I will do with these when I am done but I am sure I can come up with some way to use them all. You will find the latest butterflies in my Instagram feed if you want to track the projects progress…. now I am off to make today’s butterfly…

15Jul2016

Triangles on a Roll Lawn Quilt

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts by wombatquilts

At the beginning of the year I started making a lawn quilt using a selection of Cotton & Steel lawns. I had not made a quilt out of this soft delicate cotton fabric before but had been become fascinated with using it after starting my Liberty adventures. When I got my hands on some yards and half yards of some Cotton & Steels prints I started playing…

C&S lawn quilt

To make this quilt I used some Triangles on a roll... which was another new experience for me. I managed to get my hands on some rolls of this fun way to paper piece while I was at Quilt Con…

triangles on a roll 2

These paper rolls allow you easily make a continuous line of flying geese with no joins. Triangles on a Roll also use a pretty waste free method, which I love.

traingles on a roll 3

You are also not having to flip the pattern to look at the reverse side (as you do with other patterns) because the marks for aligning your pieces are printed on the front of the pattern….which is genius.

quilt detail So for my quilt I did three rows of 14 geese and I made sure that one of the geese in each row was a made from an alternative colour way of my geese fabric.

optical illusion

When I started this project I did not have a grand plan… I just wanted to play with Lawn and see how it quilted up plus I wanted to play with the triangle on a roll.

flying geese detail

There is a fun optical illusion with this quilt that I did not plan for but which I kind of like. But more than anything I love how soft this quilt is. The quilt is headed to the local PICU, and I know it is going to be of extra cuddly comfort to some kid.

binding

I also know that I will be using lawn again to quilt with as it is just so soft and I am already planning my next Triangle on a roll project. I love this way of paper piecing….