More Bee Blocks

Please excuse the muddled order of photos - blogger was not being helpful tonight.

Have I shown you this block made for Jen?
It has now been embellished and is ready to post. See the last 2 pics for embellishments.

The following 2 blocks are for an 'I spy' quilt my friends and I are putting together. More on that when I have more to show.
The star is for Tacha of Busy Bees. I used a free pattern found online for this one.
As promised, Jen's embellishments. Some cute little buttons;
and some colourful and sparkly ric rac.

::57::

More bee blocks - forgive my laziness if you've seen some of these before - I can't be bothered checking old posts.


Big blocks for Sheridan:
Smaller blocks for Liz:

Orange blocks for Amber:



The Japan plans are coming along nicely. The airfares have been paid for, accommodation booked (just waiting on my tax return to pay that off), and we start learning Japanese through CAE tomorrow night! Only 57 sleeps til departure :)

Stars and Stripes

Some more quilting bee blocks for the month of July. This time, scrappy stars for Nova from the Australasian Bee:

nova #1

nova #2

nova #3

nova #4

And stripes for Andi from The Beehive.

andi #1-#6

These blocks were all so easy to do! As long as you are prepared (ie fabrics cut to size, iron at the ready), it's just as easy to make a couple as it is to make 4 or 6.


PS: don't forget to enter my giveaway for an Ice Cream Blouse (size 2T). Go enter here. Ends Monday 19th July

Catching up

After all the last minute sewing I did to get my sister's quilt finished in time for her birthday, I don't think I could even look at my machine for at least a week. Add in some girl-child drama's and some weekday work that sucked up all my child-free hours, and I'm feeling a little behind in all my quilting bees (four) and swaps (five).

Today I was very productive! I made triangle blocks for Angela from Busy Bees;

triangles for Angela

more triangles for Angela

I made boxy stars for Monika from the Australasian Bee;

boxy stars for Mon

and I made 6.5 inch nine patches for Kate from Busy Bees.

Kate's nine patches

This is my favourite little detail, taken from the selvedge of an Ink and Spindle fabric.

Remind me later to tell you all about a screen printing day I did a couple of weeks ago at the Ink and Spindle studios with Lara from Harvest Textiles. So much fun! (if you look closely you may find a pic of me in their flickr pics)

For now, though, I have some knitting to do (I'm knitting a blanket!) and last weeks episode of The Wire to watch.

Quilt as you go...

Penny from sewtakeahike hosted a little quilt-along earlier this year. It looks like a great way to use up scraps of batting and fabric, so I had it bookmarked for laters.

Then, Kellie from the Australasian Bee sent out her fabric for May, and asked us to make up one or two blocks using Penny's tutorial. I was only too happy to oblige. Kellie's blocks are the last two pictured (blogger didn't put the pics in the right order).

After making Kellie's blocks, I realised how great the individual blocks would be for making cushion covers. I needed two for a birthday party on Thursday night, and managed to churn them out pretty quickly.

The orange and brown one went to a 4 year old boy,

the blue and green to a 3 year old boy.

Their mums were delighted!

Below are Kellie's two blocks.
They measure 10 inches square,
and both feature a gorgeous little fussy cut Heather Ross print. Too cute.

I have loads of batting scraps taking up precious space in my fabric cupboards, so I look forward to making myself a 'quilt-as-you-go' quilt sometime soon. For now, though, I'm frantically trying to get my sister's birthday quilt finished in time to present it to her on Tuesday night. Wish me luck!

May Bee Blocks

For Julie

Two for Nichol

Contemporary Quilt Blocks

July is my month to send out fabric for the Bee Addicted 3 quilting bee, and after months of indecision I've finally settled on the style of block pictured below.

I made my first prototype today, and I'm really happy with how it looks.
I'm using kona cotton in charcoal for the background, white for the strips, and Kaffe Fassett stripes and shot cottons for the coloured pieces. This block measures 10 inches square.

When I'm deciding on quilt blocks for a bee I never draw up a plan of how the quilt will look, or what size it'll be. I figure that all that will be decided when I have all the blocks laid out in front of me. I can always add borders if it needs to be bigger :)

For those of you who make quilts, do you draw up plans first? Or do you fly by the seat of your pants like I do?

Squid Eye

What sounds like a terrible water-born disease of the eye is actually just the name of one of these quilt blocks - see the middle one.

Tanya from the Beehive asked for circles. She included a photo of this great squid eye quilt as part of her inspiration .

The two blocks with the coloured backgrounds are smaller, 6 inches I think, and the circle on white is 12.5 inches.

Aren't they great colours!

new beginnings

Despite having a room filled with unfinished sewing, knitting and crochet projects, I started a couple of new things.

The first project is still on paper (albeit freezer paper), but hopefully I will start cutting into some fabric for it today. It's a bit of a sneak peak at what I'm making for my partner for the {Urban} Home Goods swap.

The other project I've recently started is some hexagon flowers for a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. They are quite addictive, so I've churned out many more than I thought I would since Saturday. I'm wishing now that I'd kept some of Miss J's dresses from when she was little so I could add pieces of them ...

Busy Bees

The lovely ladies in my Australasian Bee have been very busily sewing up blocks for my new quilt. I sent off a selection of olive, grey and white fabrics, and they have generously been adding some coordinating fabrics from their own stashes. I asked for improv squares with high contrast, ranging in size from about 6 inches (I think) to about 10 inches. This is what I've received back so far...

I'm so delighted with the blocks! I have no idea yet of layout, I'll wait to see what else I get back before I really start playing around.

The Lilac Dandy rides again

Yes, I'm still lovin' the name of this quilt! It's slowly coming along. I'll make another 3 star blocks before sashing it, then I'll probably do some stippling.

I hope to have it ready for binding on Thursday, in time for another session of Perle8's.

I've been recording the amount of time spent making these blocks (just for interest's sake, not so I can flaunt it to all the rellies at Easter when I hand over the quilt to my Grandma), and I'm surprised at how long the blocks have been taking to make! So far I've spent 8 hours making 9 blocks, which includes cutting all the fabric too.

The Lilac Dandy

Don't you just love that name? Sounds like an 18th century gigolo, doesn't it?

Alas, it is only the latest quilt block I have made (although pleasingly, I now have a name for the quilt!). I'm making a lap quilt for my soon-to-be 86 year old Grandma. I'm pretty sure her favourite colour is purple, so I bought the two lilac fabrics for her quilt at Spotlight this morning. The floral on white fabric is a vintage sheet from the stash.

I used a tutorial from Modify Tradition, called the Dandy. An easy enough block to sew, I'm sure I'll tire quickly of cutting all the squares for it, though. I fear I've been spoilt by quilting bees - after a couple of blocks I'm ready to move on to something new.

Anyhoo, I have procrastinating to do... or fabric to cut.... depends on what's on tv :)

Blocks for Rebecca

February is Rebecca's month in the Beehive. She wanted a big pinwheel block (like that found in Material Obsession 2), and some smaller nine patches if we so desired.

Blocks for Brenis

Brenis from the Bee Addicted 3 quilting bee requested improv blocks for her month. She didn't mind the size of the blocks, she just wanted some high contrast with the text/numbers fabric somewhere in the middle.

In my haste to get these to the post office this afternoon I didn't measure any of them - but I figure they range between about 8 - 10 inches square.
My fave to make was the one with the cross, but I do really love the thin brown strip on the block below (separating the spots). If I hadn't just cut up 1 metre of Kona charcoal last night for the Australasian Bee, I'd get stuck into some blocks for myself (featuring some very thin dark strips).
Next on my list of things to make is the doll quilt top for DQS8 and some more hexie flowers for the pillow swap. Hopefully I can make a start on the doll quilt tonight!

November Blocks

It's Meg's month in the Beehive, and she requested mosaic-y/beach-inspired improvised blocks using a beautiful range of fabrics.

The above block measures 10.5 inches square, the one below is 10.5 by 5.5 inches.
Over at Bee Addicted 3 it's Katrina's month. She sent these 2 solids, requesting wonky quarter log cabins.
My interpretation of wonky was the varied widths of each layer (as opposed to sharper angles). Having seen some of the other blocks in the group, my second block (incomplete, so not yet photographed) is ever-so-slightly more angular, but very similar to the above. This block measures 15.5 inches square.

December is my month to send out fabric for the Beehive, so I've been busily practicing blocks to decide (!!! - so late to still be unsure!!) what I want the girls to make. I need to have the international parcels sent off by the end of the week, so tomorrow (my child-free day) will be a busy one. And a hot one, I hear, so I'm hoping to squeeze in a swim at the local outdoor pool in the morning. I'm going to steal my daughters goggles and attempt a few laps - but I may end up just lounging on the steps instead....

I've become such an inconsistent blogger, haven't I? If it weren't for the quilting bees I joined, who knows when I might have found the time to blog again....

I have been kept pretty busy with a 6 week stint of work that finished on Tuesday, as well as school holidays, and lots of drama when my car broke down 110km's from home! It's a long story, involving a very dodgy tow-man/mechanic and a week with no car. I finally got to pick the car up on Friday, sweet relief!

Anyway, onto the sewing! The following block is a big one, measuring 18.5 inches square. It's made for Belinda from the Beehive. She's making a quilt for her son, who likes aeroplanes (hence the one in the centre of the block, found in my stash). The pattern she's using is from Material Obsession, the Retro Starburst quilt. I look forward to seeing it when she gets all the blocks - I've had real difficulty visualising this one (having not seen the book myself).

The following two blocks are for Brioni of Bee Addicted 3. She sent a heap of yellow scraps, along with the unbleached cotton, and requested wonky stars floating on the unbleached background.
I've not made wonky stars before, so didn't get too adventurous with the design. I did try to mix up the centre squares a bit in an effort to use each of the fabrics she sent.
All posted today! Which leaves me set to sew birthday gifts for the mother's group kids, most of them turn 2 or 4 in Sept and Oct, and I'm a bit behind!