Revisiting Starry Night

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Last week’s paper piecing blocks, along with some of your comments, reminded me that I needed to finish my Starry Night quilt top up. So this week I am determined to make some good headway on it…. starting with a couple of new 6 inch blocks…

This little star is another of Don’t Call Me Betsy’s “Lucky Star” blocks from last years BOM series. It was fun using my teeny tiny bits of scraps to make this pretty.

I did make a small adjustment because of the size of the block, and used a larger scrap for the final blue sky piece, opting not to do a little piece in the corner. I also realised making these blocks that I needed to use smaller scale prints to get that scrappy contrast.

With my second star I managed to squeak some Pearl Bracelets in, but I had to position the scrap just right so the dots showed up. This block is a 6 inch star that I found on my EQ7 program – it has some neat paper pieced blocks. Julie at 627 Handworks’ Global Concept block is very similar to my tiny block, but bigger. You can find her free paper piecing pattern here.

I think one or two more blocks and I will be ready to start putting this top together. I am going to work this week at how I want to handle the negative space, playing with some scrappy navy/blue blocks as filler. I will share the results next week.

19May2014

Paper Piecing Monday is back on schedule

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

This week I ventured deep into the world wide web searching for a star pattern to make for this week’s Paper Piecing Monday… and ended up with this little ditty.

The block is called ET Phone Home by Lilly’s Quilts and you can find the free paper piecing pattern here. Note the pattern is 12 inches for a 11 1/2 inch finished block not a 12 inch finish.

To get the pieces to align was a bit of a challenge for me. I am use to patterns being designed so that you can easily match points so that things align perfectly. With this pattern there was lots of using pins to make things work (and for me lots and lots and lots of unpicking).

So do not look to closely as the points are not all exactly, perfectly match up… but it is pretty close!

5May2014

Paper Piecing Monday for #opgivewarmth

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday, Scrap quilts by wombatquilts

This weekend Sarah at nohatsinthehouse.com unveiled the colour palette for May for her charity block program #opgivewarmth. I was immediately smitten with the possibilities…

So this month I will be working with this palette for all my paper piecing Monday posts…. and of course sending the blocks to Sarah so she can make some wonderful charity quilts.

To start this process I picked a few of the colours in the palette and a lovely star blocks and came up with this…

The pattern is another Craftsy free block… Lone Starburst by Six White Horse Patterns and at 56 pieces it is not too complex.

Feel free to join the palette fun and make a 3, 6 or 12 inch block and give some warmth and comfort to a child. This is a perfect way to help, as not everyone has the time to make a completed quilt for charity but making a block or two is an easy way to help. More details and information on the project can be found here.

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.

24Mar2014

Finally Neoned out… for now

Posted in neon quilt blocks, Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

I am proud to present the last block of my Neon Pink quilt…

This pattern was fun to make and I think reflects a couple of the other blocks already in the quilt. You can find a free copy of the pattern I designed here…WQ Atomic Star block.

So now all of the neon blocks are done and all that is left to do is the maths for the sashing – made a little complex because the blocks finished up at 12 1/2 inches and 11 inches. In the beginning when I decided to make some friends for the two 11 inch PMQG orphan blocks I found, I did not realise I was making the maths harder. Augh….