Lost in the infinite Starry Night…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Well that at least is what it has felt like the last couple of weeks. My design wall has been home to just one thing… my Starry Night quilt. I was determined not to take it down until it was finished… and I didn’t…

Over the last weeks I have added more night sky bit by bit…

The white bits of the design board became smaller and smaller…. and this week I finally finished all the sky blocks and wrangled all the pieces together…

Starry Night quilt top is now finished….It was quite a task to get this paper stiffened behemoth through my little old domestic machine but I did it… with only a few minor injuries.

The most interesting view of this creation, I think is the back, with all the paper pieces still in tact. You can see just how much variety there is in the night sky. I had a blast playing with the EQ7 paper piecing library and I do not think this crazy would not have been possible without EQ.

I think if I had set out to do the sky this way in the beginning I am sure I would have found some way to talk myself out of it.

As it was I just did it bit by bit, not really fully understanding how insane I was being….

Once the paper is off I will post photos of the complete top… at the moment it is just to stiff and unruly to handle…. next week I promise a full quilt top reveal.

1Aug2014

Wonky Kites Quilt

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

A couple of weeks ago a group of PMQG members met for our monthly Charity Sew Day. These get togethers are always good fun and this one was no exception. For July I had chosen a wonky kite block for us to make… another easy scrap busters…

This quilt is so ridiculously simple. We started with a 5 inch square of our background solid, Kona Shadow and then sewed a green/blue scrap on opposite corners.

You then trim the block to 5 inches….

Then sew two block together, making sure the triangle pieces meet, but not worrying at all about matching the seams (this is the wonky way). Repeat process and then sew the two halves together to make the kite centered block…

What you end up with is a really fun, random block…

Sew them all together and you end up with a huge quilt top!

Our charity for this month has requested Twin size quilts, no mean feat at the best of times (and impossible for me to photograph properly).

This block was perfect for making sure we had a fun, modern quilt ready to go to a long armer, in a day.

It helped that we had a great team working to make blocks….

And of course the final check and block layout approval was provided by the cat!

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.

19Jun2014

A Wonky Tree Forest…and tutorial

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

A few weeks ago I forced everyone at the PMQG Charity Sew day to make wonky trees. We had a large amount of green, brown and cream fabrics donated to the Guild and as soon as I saw the fabric I knew that we MUST make trees.

There were only two rules…. the finished block had to be 8 1/2 inches square and it had have a tree in it. What follows is the basic instructions I gave at the start of the day…

Wonky Tree Block Instructions:

Step One…. grab all your green scraps…and some of your brown scraps and either some white/cream solid or a collection of cream scraps.

Step Two... sew a selection of your scraps together to make a rectangle of green goodness… this is going to be your tree top so make it as big or as small as you want you tree to be.

Step Three… trim said rectangle to your desired shape. For some of our trees we used a triangle ruler…

and for others we just made wonky oval shapes by trimming the corners of our rectangle and adding some corner background fabric….

Step Four…. add pieces of your background fabric around your tree top to make the it square and trim the bottom of your tree top so that it is straight…

Note: You do not have to worry too much about making sure that the “sky” (background fabric) around the tree is as big as your finished block size as you have the ability to add a border to the block as needed. With the smaller trees we made the tree block up and then sashed the block out to the 8 1/2 inch square finished size (see Step Six and a half).

Step Five… Build the tree trunk by cutting a small piece of brown scrap fabric to make a suitable sized tree trunk. Remember this is wonky quilting so it can be as fat or as thin or as tall or short as you want. Sew two pieces of your background fabric to your brown strip, making sure your finished trunk piece is at least as wide as your tree top piece. Make sure that you trim the top of the tree trunk so that it is straight.

Step Six… align the trunk to your tree top and sew the two pieces together.

Step Six and a half… if you have made a small tree sash your tree block to make it the correct size.

Step Seven…. Trim your block to size, we went with 8 1/2 inch square. Note: that the tree trunk ends at the bottom of the block, with no extra background fabric at the bottom. I found that having all the trunks at the bottom of the block made the overall look of the pieced quilt cleaner and more uniformed.

And voila you have a wonky tree block….

At the end of our day of sewing we had a veritable forest of different type of trees. Everyone embraced the wonky and the freedom to do whatever took their fancy. My favorite creation of the day was the Apple Tree…

It was so much fun putting the final quilt top together, there were so many fabulous blocks to choose from and I spent a good hour or so re-arranging the forest on my design wall.

When piecing the top together I used cream scraps cut into 8 1/2 square blocks and 4 1/2 x 8/12 inch strips to space out the trees. From playing with the layout on the design wall I knew I did not want to put all the trees together in one clump. I then added a 3 inch sashing of cream scraps between each row of trees.

I am so pleased with how this top turned out. There is a sense of fun and silliness to the trees…everyone did such a stellar job and no two trees are alike.