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.

It's done!

After many hours of sewing in the last week or two, I finished this quilt for my sisters birthday.

Many thanks to the ladies in my Australasian Quilting Bee, who made most of the blocks for the quilt. Thanks must also go to my mum, who is a super speedy binder! Seriously, she'd done nearly 2 sides by the time I finished one!
I ended up adding borders to all of the blocks to make them 14 inches square. The final measurements are something like 170cm by 200cm. All it needs is a wash and dry to bring out the crinkles.

I love it, and more importantly, my sister loves it!

At some stage in the next few days I'll write out a list of all the lovely helpers I had to give to my sister, so she knows who made which block. Thanks ladies!

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?

Glorious Colour

My drought-breaking purchase of Kaffe Fassett stripes and shot cottons arrived today.

They'll be sent of in late June to my fellow Bee Addicted 3 bees with some charcoal or coal Kona cotton.

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!

Catch Up Post

April was a busy month for me. As well as working more regularly (and saving for a trip to Japan later in the year- more on that another time), I have been quite productive. I'm caught up on all my quilting bees, and have even posted off most of the blocks (I'm pretty bad at posting things on time). I've nearly finished my secret swap item for the Urban Home Swap, and I've also nearly finished 2 quilts - the smaller is nearly bound, and the larger is nearly quilted. Very good for me, I like to start things then lose interest well before it's finished.

So, onto the show and tell. This block was made for Katrina from The Beehive. It measures 16.5 inches, if I remember correctly.

This is a single bed quilt that I'm making entirely from the stash (saving money for Japan, remember!). The dark blue is Kona cotton in Indigo, most of the rest of the whirlygigs (or windmills) are made from a stack of leftover fabrics given to me by mum last year. They are not what I would ever buy myself, but I like how the quilt has turned out. I've thrown in a few other fabrics from the stash to get the size I wanted. I've quilted more than half (so far) with an invisible thread - not sure what I think of the invisible thread, though. I like that the stitching is, well... invisible, but it is shiny, which I don't like so much. Jury's out.
Below is a block I've just made for Julie, also from the Beehive. She sent out some gorgeous Kaffe Fassett stripes and shot cottons that have caused me to splurge on fabric for the first time since December!! It was a self-imposed fabric diet that shall continue from tonight onwards :)

Anyhoo, the block measures 13-ish inches (slightly bigger).
Last, but not least, Viv from the Australasian Bee asked for 16 inch blocks with 1.5 inch squares (but not limited to squares!). It's been interesting seeing the variety of designs that the other bees have come up with. I thought I'd throw in a curved corner since I'm not scared of them anymore :)

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.