Sunday, May 25, 2014

Bee Blocks for Stars in Their Eyes

This year I am busier than ever, so I cut my online Bee commitments down. The Bee I stayed with is so much fun that I hope we go on for years! There are 6 of us, and every month a different person chooses the block and the colours, and away we go! The wonderful thing is that you get to try out blocks and techniques that you would probably only have thought about before.

January we made the Arkansas Traveler block for Becky. It is partly paper pieced, and my pattern printed too small the first time. Yikes! I started again, and learned to be wary of the printing, even when you have unchecked all those pesky sizing boxes!




February was my month, and my bee mates made awesome blocks for my Harry potter bookcase. More about this soon, as the quilt is nearly finished. I'm just putting the binding on. Yay!

In March we made Scrappy Trip Around the World blocks for Brandy. I'd seen them on the web, but never tried it. They turned out great!



 Aren't they pretty? And all with the low volume fabric in the centre.

In April Susan chose a 3/4 log cabin in bright coloured solids. I had not seen this block before. It is so striking! The inspiration is found here

It will make such an amazing quilt! Here are my blocks



 Wow, this quilt will be stunning.

This month Lisa asked for the Mosaic Block, which is like the Economy block but with an extra diagonal portion. It is for a childrens quilt, so the centres are fussy cut with that in mind. The tutorial for this block is found here

Here are my blocks, (2) 14 1/2 inch blocks in 4 quadrants each. As Lisa said, the most time consuming part is choosing the fabrics. That was fun! Each quadrant has a fussy cut centre, a round of bright, a round of low volume, diagonals in a bright fabric and then corners in low volume. I enjoyed debating which fabrics to put where! I can totally see myself making another quilt with this pattern.




Till next time,

Sue

Friday, May 16, 2014

Bloggers Quilt Festival

Although I have several other quilts almost finished that I'd like to enter, here is my completely finished entry, Creamsicle. The colours in the quilt remind me of the frozen treat, hence the name.

I started the quilt in January, blogged here. I experienced the usual snags while making it, including sewing in a row backwards and not even noticing! The picture of what went wrong is here .

  It was made in four sections, quilted on my HSM, and then joined using a row of the background squares. I had a few troubles getting the zig zag border to fit, and it occurred to me afterward that it would have been easier to put the border onto the finished top instead of onto each quarter. However...

The quilt was finished in March, blogged here . There are closeups of the quilting. I'm quite proud of the leafy vine I did along the zigzag. It turned out well, but not overwhelming.

When I delivered it to its new home I took pictures of it with Vancouver Island backgrounds.













I love looking at this quilt! There are about 30 low volume prints in the background, and each one became a favourite! It was definitely worth all the planning!



Quilt stats:

size after washing -  92" x 100"
binding -  wonky black and white stripe from stash
backing - Ikea



Linking to


AmysCreativeSide.com

I plan to spend lots of time admiring all the quilts entered in the Festival. Have a look!


Sue