Churn dashes for Bee Blessed

Apologies that I am a little late this month telling you about the latest Bee Blessed blocks.

Bee Blessed have requested churn dash blocks for Jan.  These are probably my favourite blocks to make.  I love the clean lines and striking shape and, of course, the fact that they are really nice and straightforward to make is a bonus too!

My tutorial here provides nice, clear instructions to help you whip up a block or two yourself.  Bee Blessed is working with white solid for the backgrounds of their blocks and a coloured print for the churn itself.  Take my word for it, these are seriously nice blocks to make and they really don't take very long at all.  Go on, encourage the Bee Blessed team by sending them an addition or two to their fab charity quilts!

Seriously excited!

Just couldn't wait to show you my churn dashes all stitched together.

Squee!

All my Ruby fabrics mixed with some Marmalade and Vintage Modern. Love it SO much!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Retro Butterflies Quilt

Today was too beautiful a day to miss a photo opp in the garden with my newly completed Retro Butterflies quilt.  Woohoo!

This quilt was a class project with original design by She Can Quilt's Leanne and taught in Belfast by Judith.  I have been so enjoying the new skills of curved piecing to achieve these butterfly quilts, and I even did it the hard way with templates.  Not a die cutter in sight for this dinosaur!!

This quilt really started with the backing fabric which is a lightweight curtain which my gorgeous friend Di charmed from some charity shop.  Being rather taken by the vintage feel of it but the freshness and softness of the colours, I knew immediately that one day it would be the perfect backing for an aqua and grey quilt top.  So I raided my stash back then and set aside any fabrics that might work with it and over time I added a sale fq here or half metre there until the stack was big enough to stretch to a reasonable sized quilt.

When Judith advertised this class for her summer term programme, I wasn't the only one to rush to enrol.  And, I am so glad I did!  I love the calmness of the colours in this quilt, the soft dove greys and the splashes of clear water aquas.  It's definitely a summer quilt, so I used some very low loft cotton wadding from Quilter's Dream and added a few echo quilting lines inside and outside each butterfly.

This gloriously over-exposed shot shows off the quilting beautifully.  It reminds me of simple celtic knots almost when you see it from a distance or from the back.

I'm calling this quilt "Flutters of Friendship" because it will always remind me of the other friends who've had a little share in its bringing into being - Judith for her class tuition, Leanne for her original design and brilliant curves piecing video tutorial and Di for her generosity and thoughtfulness in gifting the inspirational backing fabric.  Thank you, lovely ladies!

In my attempts to ensure that this quilt did not add to the WIPs list that I have so diligently been trying to diminish since the beginning of the year, I actually managed to finish up a few weeks before the end of the class session.  But never fear!  Trusty WIP/UFO list to the rescue -

these 49 churn dash blocks have been laid out and are being packed for a piece-a-thon at tomorrow night's class!

Siblings Together Block Drive Quilts - The Big Reveal

Ok folks, here they are at last.  Two finished churn dash quilts for Siblings Together. Hooray!

Wavy line quilted and orange basket weave print binding.

Wavy line quilted with tiny red gingham binding.

In case you don't know the story, I'll quickly recap how these quilts came to be.

Back in May 2013 I noticed a thread on the Siblings Together Flickr group seeking members for a new Bee to spend a year making quilts for the charity.  Reading the discussion thread I noted that many of those commenting loved the idea of contributing to the charity quilts but weren't in a position to be able to commit to blocks every month.  Seemed a shame to me to waste so much enthusiasm and so I added my own little discussion thread and posted on my blog inviting those who would like to make a one off block contribution to a quilt for an older boy to sign up to my Siblings Together Block Drive.

Of course, you folks were amazing and pretty quickly I had offers of more blocks than I needed to make the one quilt I'd planned.  There was nothing else for it but to go for two quilts!!  So, several months of block collecting later I had a pile of 57 funky churn dash blocks from 17 different volunteers to turn into these fun, colourful quilts which I am sure will be loved by their recipients at the summer camps this year.

I cannot thank the amazing ladies who contributed these blocks enough.  They flew in from all corners of the UK, the USA, Finland, the Netherlands and Australia.  It was entirely my pleasure and privilege to co-ordinate these quilts and to allow many of you the opportunity to be part of this year's Siblings Together quilt spree.  I think we did a good job ladies!!

All that remains is for me to package these up and send them on to Siblings Together HQ and to say one final, huge THANK YOU to all of you!


These two quilts also make up the first finishes from my FAL 2014 Qtr 1 list - yay!

At last...

... my real life To Do list is back to the normal 101 things instead of a squillion.

... I've had some sewing hours in my wee room and sanity is slowly being restored.

... I'm working on putting together those Siblings Together quilts!  (Not before time, I can hear the Block Drive Peeps murmur.  Sorry folks, but I am on the case now, promise.)

 From the 57 blocks that the generous Siblings Block drive ladies stitched up I laid out 2 quilt tops.  One 5 x 5 blocks

 
and a larger 5 x 6 one.  There was much switching and swapping of the blocks to try to balance the colours and look of these two quilts.  I could still be sitting there swapping blocks around, but finally made a decision that these were good enough.  I'm hoping that these will work for older boys at this summer's Siblings Together camps.  What do you think?

While I had a lengthy spell behind the sewing machine I went ahead and pieced two quilt backs as well.

The two remaining churn dash blocks were pieced into a red gingham panel and added to some lovely navy, red, green plaid yardage as a backing for the smaller quilt.  It's hard to see in this photo but it is actually very nice (and not pink as it appears here).

The larger quilt backing was pieced from an Ikea print that I call "the wanderers" (no idea what it's really called) and a piece of green/blue tiles print that I've had for yonks and yonks.

I'm so pleased that I'm finally making progress with these two quilts. Bit of a quilting marathon next though!

Siblings Together Block Drive - more blocks

I have one more set of Siblings Together churn dash blocks from the lovely Betty to show you.  In spite of the angle of the photograph, I assure you these blocks are all the same size!  These will now join the others that have been gathering over the past few months and after Christmas (bit later than I had planned, sorry ladies!) I will set to laying out quilts for pre-teen/teen boys.  I wonder what all of the blocks will look like together?

As I say, I am sorry that I haven't been able to get to these before now, but with 55 blocks from all your generous donations I will have two lovely quilts to keep me busy in the darker months of January and February.  Looking forward to sharing pics with you as I go.

Thanks again for the great blocks Betty!

SIblings Together Blocks - still coming

More lovelies to share for the Siblings Together Block Drive.

from Catherine

from Tina

from Caroline

from Sue

A great mixture of bolds and brights and some neutrals for balance in all of these blocks.  Thank you all so much, Ladies, for taking time to make and send these blocks on for the Block Drive quilts.

The end of the October deadline for the blocks is now in sight and this pretty pile of gorgeous blocks is reminding me that before too long I will be on my knees laying out and switching and swapping blocks for two boy quilt tops.  It will be exciting to see how they look when they come together!

Pulling Together for Siblings Together

Look at these bright, funky blocks that have come my way for the Siblings Together block drive:

Aren't they great?  The colours are much more vibrant than they appear here (camera has now become next to useless and I'm using my phone which isn't as great as the camera normally is).

A few weeks ago Jo contacted me to say that she would make a few blocks for the Siblings Together block drive and just a few days later Mr Postie dropped these four through my letterbox.  Turns out that Jo is a member of the Siblings Together Bee and these blocks are made from the fabric remaining from her ST Bee quilt.  She said that it seemed only right to use the leftovers for the blocks  (I think the fabrics for the ST Bee are sponsored donations).  So how about that - true collaboration in support of the brilliant cause that Siblings Together is!  Thank you so much Jo, for your generosity and for thinking of the block drive.  The blocks are great and will work in beautifully with the others that are gathering until the end of October.

Holiday Stitching - 3

Before I was lovingly shunted off the cottage dining table to make way for Picaso by Numbers (read yesterday's post if that's made your brow furrow quizically), I made a start on two very different quilt tops.

Before our hols I prepared fabric and then transformed these

into this giant star quilt top (a la Jeni's instructions)

These gorgeous Punctuation fabrics were kindly donated to Bee Blessed some time ago and I think they look great in this enlarged starflower design.  Hopefully, when I get around to quilting and binding it, it will find a good home with someone who needs a special comforting gift.

Then, a la my own Churn Dash tutorial and my precious Ruby and Marmalade stash, maybe with some Vintage Modern thrown in (all Bonnie and Camille, so what's not to love?) I made a start on the blocks for my own bed quilt.  SO excited about these, but there are a load more to make and it's not going to be a big priority project over the next few months, so it could be a while before there's more progress to share.  In the meantime, I might just lift them out of the box and stroke them and make cooing noises over them from time to time.  (I know I am not the only one who does this, so don't act like I'm some kind of crazy lady when you do the same thing! - ha!)

Siblings Together Block Drive Updates

I have been a bit slow to post the latest arrivals for the Siblings Together Block Drive so it is with apologies particularly to Rhonda and Frances that I show you these today.  I did have the pics all ready to post just before my hols and hoped to use Blogsy while I was away to share them with you all.  But  in a stunningly dim move, I left the little lead that connects my camera to my ipad at home so the photos were here but I was not!

So, here are the lovelies sent by Rhonda all the way from Tennessee -

from Rhonda

more from Rhonda

 and these gorgeous zigzag blocks are from Frances in the Netherlands -

from Frances

again from Frances

Arriving home from our holiday last night, two of the parcels in my mountain of post contained these yummies from Audrey

from Audrey

who thought she had made a mistake making a yellow block , so she made another blue one for the quilt

Audrey's apology block

I'm secretly a bit glad she thought the yellow was a mistake (which it isn't) because I love the navy print she has included in this one!  But ssshhh, don't tell I said that.


And then the very generous Anne B sent me some extra blocks from Down Under -

from Anne B - the bottom print is a great wee design
 of little motifs from around the world

So, thanks to all your very generous block donations I now have 33 blocks in this little pile, with a number of pledged blocks still to arrive before the end of October.  

I think there will be two amazing international quilt tops from all of these wonderful churn dashes you ladies have stitched up for the Siblings Together project.

As always, I cannot thank you enough - you are stars!!

More Churn Dashes Arriving

Some more lovely churn dash blocks have been arriving from the folks who have committed to contribute to the Siblings Together Block drive ...

from Judith

from Audrey, no1

from Audrey, no 2

from Audrey, no 3

I love the strong colours in the blocks and am looking forward next autumn to arranging the blocks all together to make a great boy quilt for the Siblings Together charity.

Thank you ladies!!