And back again… so soon….

Posted in Finished Quilts by wombatquilts

Since I am on a roll I thought I would share another quilt from last years very productive PMQG Charity year….

This quilt was once again made at one of the monthly sew days we used to have at Modern Domestic…. and once again it is a simple patchwork block using 3 1/2 inch squares.

This time I gathered a rainbow of squares in a selection of specific colors. The block has a particular layout with to give the rainbow some uniformity. I first made this block years ago (2013) using a tutorial by Blue Elephant Quilts… and you can find the layout of the specific pieces on their original post…

It really is amazing what different things you can do with 3 1/2 inch squares. This quilt embraced the bright and the novelty prints which was so fun… and is always the case I swear we had more precut squares when we were finished this than when we started. Be warned do not leave precut squares unattended, they will breed.

To get the full impact of the rainbow splat we decided to do a layout with sashing. I do not usually sash quilts but this one really works with the black and white border. The sashing was expertly done by fellow PMQG charity volunteer Jenny McKee. Jenny has mad skills and was able to add a border without any sweat… were it would have taken me forever and lots of swear words to do it properly.

I did however make the back of the quilt which was equally rainbowy. The fabric for the back was part of a huge donation we received which was full of glorious black and white prints and two pieces of this wonderful print. It really was the perfect back for the top.

And as always we finish with the obligatory pinkies… no amount of begging will get him to hold a quilt like a normal person!

Quilt Details:

Block: 12 inch simple patchwork
Fabric: 3 1/2 inch scraps
Finished Size: 60 x 70 inches

1Nov2017

Double Plus Block

Posted in Quilt patterns by wombatquilts

After another absence I am back…this time with a block for my Do Good Stitches Bee. It is my month to set the block and after much back and forth I came up with this block….

double plus block

To make this 12 1/2 inch block (unfinished) you will need:

5 (five) x 3 1/2 inch squares of your main color
10 (ten) x 3 1/2 inch squares of low volume prints
5 (five) x 1 1/2 inch squares of your secondary color
4 (four) x 1 1/2 inch squares of low volume prints

STEP ONE – Make the small cross

smallcross

Layout your 1 1/2 inch squares in the desired layout.
Sew the three squares in three rows. Press seams as desired (I pressed mine open).

Sew the rows together again pressing seams as desired (I pressed my seams open).
Trim the finished block to 3 1/2 inches square.

trim block

STEP TWO – Make the block

Layout your block as below…

blocklayout

Sew your squares into rows and then your rows into a block.
Iron your seam as desired – I ironed mine open to get the block to sit as flat as I could.
If required, trim final block to 12 1/2 inches. Repeat the process until you have as many blocks as you need….

Our quilt will be a rainbow of color, with each block having two bright colors per block… but I think it would be fun to do a block with just two colors – one for the big blocks and one for the small blocks.

As a caveat to this blog post it is the first one I have done on my new MacBook. My old computer gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago (one of the reasons I have not been posting) and I am still finding my way around this machine. My hope is a new computer will encourage me to post more… heres hoping!

25Sep2015

Playing with a Lizzy Rainbow… and a giveaway

Posted in Quilts by wombatquilts

Last weekend my darling husband abandoned me to go on a boys camping trip, and as soon as he had walked out the door I knew exactly what I was doing with my free time….

You see just before DH left I took delivery of the latest Lizzy House range, Lovely Hunt….and I knew that I had to use it immediately so I pulled out ALL my Lizzy House fabric….

…and cut out a 5 inch square from each piece of fabric. Then, using my hexagon mini for guidance I got to work….

As there was no husband I could keep working without having to pack things away… I had squares and fabric all over the floor…and it took me a couple of days to get all the blocks up…I kept adjusting and rearranging, coming back to the design wall in between other tasks…I finally ended up with this…

The first block I placed was the low volume cats and then I just worked slowly from there. I tried to tackle one or two colours at a time, making sure that there was a flow to the colours…

Not all the fabric made it into this quilt top…

I only ended up using 168 different fabrics and had about 20 left over. I could not work out how to make the brown palette work so it did not even get a look in.

A couple of the prints had too much colour variation in them at 5 inches big to make the them work, but all the wonderful blenders…the Pearl Bracelets, the mini bracelets, the Butterflies and the chain links helped make the novelty fabrics play nice.

This quilt is definitely my quilt… it is not going anywhere but onto our couch. As the weather starts to turn icky here in the Pacific Northwest this quilt will keep me warm and cozy…. all I have to do is finish it up!

Now while I was cutting up my Lizzy Stash I cut an extra fat eight or two for a give away. By the time I had finished working through my stash I had a stack of 25 different fabrics… including quite a few out of print beauties, as well as some of the new Lovely Hunt….

So if you would like to win this fat eight bundle just leave a comment below, telling me what you would do with this wonderful bundle of colour. ~~I will draw a winner next Wednesday, and as always the contest is open to my overseas friends too.~~

This giveaway is closed. Thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations to Linda who won.

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.

18Sep2014

A work in progress to change the pace…

Posted in Quilts by wombatquilts

I recently had the privilege of receiving a review copy of Cheryl Arkison’s book “A month of Sunday’s”. The PMQG is often sent books to review and when this title was offered I jumped at it. I loved Cheryl’s first book “Sunday Morning Quilts” which she co-authored with Amanda Jean Nyberg.

This book has a different feel and pace to it than Cheryl’s last book. It has recipes, bag patterns, musing on life and the best chapter EVER on low volume quilting. The chapter “Turn it Down” does a marvelous job of explaining what low volume is, how it works and how to select fabrics. It has tips on value, scale and colour in low volume fabrics and I learnt some neat stuff.

The book’s quilting projects are all fabulously low key, low volume and fun. You are challenged to take what you have learnt about low volume and apply it to patterns. There are helpful hints about turning up the volume on the patterns too but they are all perfect for the quieter style.

Flipping through the book there was one pattern in particular that caught my eye and I knew I just had to make it…

So fabric was pulled (I had a surprising number of text prints!) and then cut. Now, after months of loud bright colours my design wall at the moment is full of scrappy low volume prints.

The wall looks so strange with the random placement but as the rows are sewn together I am seeing some magic appear. I used more creams in my top, which gives my Crossword an old newspaper” feel I think.