More green…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Surprise… I am back again with another installment of Paper Piecing Monday…. and today’s block is another nice one (though I may be a little biased!).

When I designed the pattern it reminded my of the fan block, which is why the block is called Fan Star… though when I sewed all the pieces together I must admit a better name would have been Pinwheel star. Naming the blocks is the hard part for me.

Any way you can find the PDF paper piecing pattern for this 8 inch block here….Fan star. Now I did promise a wip photo but this week kicked my butt and I have not done it yet… next week, I promise.

7Nov2014

Another Good finish…

Posted in Other fun stuff by wombatquilts

I am plowing my way through my “must do before we leave” list… and this week it meant finishing up last month’s Do Good Stitches quilt top. I was Queen Bee and set a simple, but fabulous cross block.

I used the dimension from Wooden Spoon’s flickr photo https://www.flickr.com/photos/wooden_spoon/8584301543/ and choose a navy blue cross on a scrappy low volume background. The finished quilt top is scrap-tastic.

I love how the background has an amazing array of colours just subtly hanging out. Because the cross is so dark it was easy to get great contrast with a variety of different colours and fabrics.

We also managed to sneak in some great novelty prints too…just for fun.

I trimmed all the blocks to 11 1/2 inches unfinished, and possibly got a little carried away in making my samples. I made 12 blocks so easily, so that when they were added to my fellow Hope Circle members blocks we had enough blocks to 5 across and 6 down…instead of the usual 4 across by 5 down.

The top is in need of a some extra starch and a good press but it will all have to wait till next month to be completed! December is going to be crazy, I can tell.

17Oct2014

It was a Do Good kind of week…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I managed to finish up one of the Do Good Stitches quilt tops I have in progress. This quilt started with this wonderful block….

I found the paper piecing pattern at Freshly Pieced and fell in love. I set it as my block for August and then watched with delight as my fellow Hope Circle members sent in their blocks. A little bit of sewing and voila a quilt top was created…

I loved the subtle variations in colour that were added by other members. The deep orange adds such a pop and the soft quiet yellow gives the eye a resting place.

You may also have noticed some fun little sashing on the top. I love this touch, but it was not planned. When I set this block, I forgot that several of our Circle’s member had not done paper piecing before… and I had forgotten to give instructions on downloading the paper piecing pattern.

You see if you print a PDF straight from the website it prints out slightly smaller than standard. You need to download the PDF to your desktop/computer and then print from the download to get accurate sizing. Arkansa quilt detail 2

Also if you select the print dialogue box “print to fit” when you send the document to print it will also print out slightly smaller than needed. In the end the best thing to do is measure your pattern before you start sewing it, to make sure it is the correct size.

The four blocks that were slightly under size got a special border which added a wonderful pop of colour to the top.

So many times in my creative life I find little mistakes or hiccups make me think more creatively…make me rethink my original vision…force me to think outside the box. The end results have always be so much better than my original plan. This has been true with my painting, my film making and my quilting.

I am also linking up with Finish It up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts.

3Oct2014

The joy of a good Crossword Puzzle…

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

This week I have been working on a top-secret project for Quilt Market so my personal quilting has been at a minimum… but I did manage to squeeze enough personal sewing time in to get my Crossword Quilt top all done…

This is a very quiet quilt and very simple, but I love it. The subtly of the pattern is just perfect and adds just the right amount of interest to this low volume quilt.

I used white on white tonals, creams and greys for the back ground “newspaper” of the quilt and black and white/cream prints for the crossword section.

I used as many font or print patterns as I could find, which included raiding a few of my friends, stashes…. special thanks goes to MaryAnn who had some wonderful prints in her collection that she kindly shared. Oh and of course there is some Pearl Bracelet… I can’t make a scrap quilt without surreptitiously sneaking it in somewhere!

This top is a big one… 67.5 x 76.5. I actually played with the original pattern a little to make the quilt just a smidgen smaller than the on in “A month of Sundays”. The book actually encourages you to make up your own crossword, which is kind of fun.

So this is the point in the post where I admit I don’t understand the joy of a good crossword puzzle. My mum does them everyday but they frustrate me no end…oh and do not get me started on the craziness that is cryptic crosswords. Seriously they make no sense at all.

12Sep2014

Starry Night… the big reveal

Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilts by wombatquilts

Okay I finally managed to wrangle the Starry Night quilt top enough to get some photos. I must admit there are a few strangling pieces of paper still attached to the back…

but I promised a reveal today so here goes…

As you know, if you have followed this quilts progress, I did not have a plan of how to put this together. I just went with the flow, putting pieces up on the design wall and jigsawing the blocks into a top (a technical maneuver I do not want to attempt again!).

My design wall was too small for it, so I had pieces hanging off the wall and laying on the floor….

My first step was to arrange the star blocks in a rough layout that made sure that they were as evenly distributed and as balanced as I could get them.

I carefully placed the bigger stars around the quilt making sure that the fractured stars were separated as well as the ringed stars. I wanted the eye to move around the top exploring and I felt this was the best way to do it.