hipBees - August 2014

Amy's block choice for her regal month in HipBees was a nice straightforward cross on low volume backgrounds.  She spoiled us by sending everything already cut so it really only took a very short time to whip these up for her bee quilt.

I have no idea why, but I just love these cute lobsters, don't you?

Hope you have a fantastic, fun quilt Amy!

HipBees - July 2014

HipBees' July Queen Bee is the adventurous Indianna Dreams who requested these Scrappy Mini Star blocks using Cindy's handy tutorial.

Four blocks

In the interests of telling it like it is, these blocks are individually made up of 60 pieces each which is a lot of seams to tame to get the block to come in on size and FLAT.  A consistent seam allowance and your iron will be your friend for these babies.  I hope that Indianna Dreams will forgive my inconsistencies and that they will disappear into the quilt when it's all together.

The fabrics are mostly Lark, I think, and they really are effective in the scrappy deliciousness of these blocks.  The secondary pattern is much more obvious when you add more and more blocks together. This should be a scrappy sensation when it's finished.

June Bee Blocks

When I can, I like to take care of my Bee blocks at the first opportunity each month.  This month I wasn't quite as on the ball as usual - combination of having a little less available time and having to think about some of these blocks a little more.

The easy peasy one was the Bee Blessed block that Judith chose to be our BOM for June - Scrappy but Classy block by Anne Marie at Gen X quilters.  This one took more time choosing fabrics than stitching up and I think it'll make a great scrappy quilt for Bee Blessed.

Queen Bee of Modern Stitching Bee, Anneliese, plotted to keep us busy with HSTs for an afternoon but I think you'll agree the results are very pretty.  Her daughter should have an amazing pieced quilt 

when these lovelies all make it home.

As you can see low volume strikes again for the MSBees!

In HipBees, Rachel asked for floral applique blocks in a variety of sizes.  This one made me scratch my head a little lot as applique isn't my favourite stitching style and I didn't want to mess these up on Rachel.

With much thanks to Google Images for helping me find starting points I have made:

a raw-edged sketchy applique 6.5" square with an orange morning glory (you know I never knew they could be orange but they can);

a little bunch of yellow tulips, satin stitch appliqued as best I could (this block is 12.5" square);

and a 6.5" x 12.5" rectangular block with a little flutter of blossoms and leaves of the "Sarah-made-them-up" variety (sketchy raw-edge applique again). 

A trio of floral applique challenges!!

So, there you have it.  All squared up on the Bee Block commitments for another month and next month I get to play Queen ....

hipBees - May 2014

HipBees' Queen Bee Tanya is enlisting our help during her month to make blocks for a special gift quilt and she has chosen this fabulous paper pieced star from Fresh Lemon Quilts' Summer Sampler Series.

The fabrics Tanya sent us are absolutely beautiful together - I love this combination of bright turquoise and green against the dark grey background.  SO striking!

My blocks are the same only different if you know what I mean - a wee switch (deliberate, honest) in the turquoise fabric placement.

Looking forward to seeing the bright, bold and beautiful quilt come together!

HipBees - April 2014

Here comes summer!  Well, in my bee blocks at least.

Jill's challenge to the hipBees this month was to create two Beach Hut themed blocks for her summer quilt.  Pieced, appliqued, embroidered, whatever, Jill encouraged us to get creative with her sorbet shaded fabrics.

This kind of bee block is a little tougher than just being directed at a particular block, but in many ways these are the ones I prefer.  Yes, they take longer to plan but they challenge us to think outside of the box (or blocks) and be a little more "artistic" (I use the term lightly in my own case) with our efforts.

So, thanks Jill for allowing us free reign with techniques and embellishments for a fun theme.  I really hope you like these blocks.

First of all to get me in the summery mood, I paper pieced a little row of pretty beach huts, once again adapting the pattern I had from Judith's cushion class.

Then, to take the deserted look off the beach I embroidered (more encouragement from my IG cheerleaders) Flossy the mermaid, the little coral crab and some seashells.  Hope it's not too much whimsy in one place.  All credit for the embroidery designs belongs to Aimee Ray's Doodle Stitching book.

My second block was an attempt at raw edge applique and sketching.  Thanks to Annabella's Gees Bend inspired improv blocks a couple of months ago in Modern Stitching Bee, I even made use of the soft curving skills I learned to create a sweeping shoreline and sand line on the background of this block.  Was feeling quite chuffed with myself for getting this to happen successfully.

This one is a posh beach hut with a big picture window and a plot of its own.  The owner of this hut even has a washing line to dry her itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini on!  And, her wee dog enjoys to play next to the waves.

As an aside, can you believe the cheek of one IGer (not naming anyone) who, when I posted this pic of the bikini applique pieces (for scale),

had the cheek to say "Don't think that it will fit!!!"  Whatever did she mean?!

Anyway, as you can tell I had great fun with these blocks and hope Jill will have a spectacular, quirky beach hut quilt when all of our blocks arrive with her!  Thanks for the challenge Jill!

Money where my mouth is

As you know, a few weeks back I was encouraging you all to do whatever you can to give Alison a wee hand with her Soy Amado quilt project.  To prove that I'm prepared to do the very thing I was encouraging you all to do, I decided to take my pile of Bee blocks and turn them into a finished quilt for a child from the kids' home in Mexico City.

My second set of hipBees blocks are bright, fun and fresh and hopefully now they'll show a little bit of thoughtfulness from me and the bees and keep a child warm at night.

I'm pleased with the backing too, and all our Bee siggies are on there as a reminder of everyone who contributed to the quilt.  My thanks to my hipBee friends for their lovely blocks and for being supportive of my decision to donate this quilt to the Soy Amado project.

Now I just need to get it to the Post Office!

Oh, and I do believe it constitutes another FAL finish too!

Spiralling Issues

I've been having some spiral quilting issues for the past few days.

Mainly because the new walking foot I had to buy to replace my broken one doesn't allow me to position the guide bar to the left of my needle.  In fairness, I'm not sure that the last one did either in an official sense, but I was able to manipulate it slightly and the guide would stay in place to the left meaning that the bulk of the quilt remained to the left throughout the process rather than having to be crammed, coerced and downright bullied through the not-terribly-large throat of my machine.

The result of the substantial manhandling of this Bee Blessed quilt is that the wonk of the crosses has now been joined by a significant wobble in the spiral.  It's very hard to keep the curve smooth when there's so much hauling going on.  This 70" square looks a little more like a wobbly puddle ripple than I had intended.  Fingers crossed that the washer and dryer will help improve the look before this quilt is passed on for donation.

So, clever peeps out there, I have a sneaky feeling that there must have been a way for me to quilt the spiral with the guide bar to the right of the needle without all of this heartache (shoulder ache and backache too).  Was I doing something wrong?  Could I have helped myself by doing something obvious?  I do have a tendency to make life difficult for myself at times but I started this quilt 6 times and I just cannot see here how I could have changed the process without changing the guide bar position.  Any ideas?  Does your guide bar work both left and right of the needle?  Is this just a quirk of my Janome model that the bar will only sit to the right?  Any helpful suggestions will be gratefully received because I do like to quilt in a spiral but would honestly not want to go through this 'right of the needle' process again!

Sorry if that got a bit technical.  Back to quilts.  

I've stitched up the hipBees concentric box blocks into a flimsy and I really like how it has come together -

Then, I worked on piecing a back from some fun fabric with a ziggy siggy panel down the middle.

So yep, that makes another one basted and ready for quilting - not a spiral though!

Sorting boxes

These boxes have been fun to sort though.  They are the boxy blocks I asked the hipBees to make me back in September when we kicked off our second Bee year.

I sent out packages of black and white fabrics with a few bright scraps and asked for concentric box blocks alternating black and white rounds with occasional pops of colour .

These are the blocks that the Bees buzzed over and sent back to me and this week I've been sorting and rearranging them in the hope of removing them from my WIPs pile soon.

The usual placing, moving, replacing, moving again went on for quite a while until I finally settled on this layout.  My bad pics aren't doing them much justice but they do look great and quite funky together.  So now they've been labelled up in rows and await some stitchy attention in the not too distant future.

Belatedly, thank you hipBee lovelies for all the great blocks!



PS I'm hoping to bring you an update on my Mystery Medallion Quilt very soon - just need a few pics to finish off my post first.

Good Morning Starshine

Mama Bee, Di,  was setting out her orders for pretty blocks this month and sent us all lovely instructions for a block called Starshine.  It's a biggie at 18.5" unfinished but very nice to make.

The Liberty fabrics Di sent are very pretty, especially that green and I think oval elements are always such great mixers (very friendly fabrics if you know what I mean).  The block is a great block but I was a little disappointed that my execution didn't quite make her points twinkle as brightly as my lovely friend Di deserves.  I wonder if she could just squint a little for me when she looks at my block so she might not notice?  ;-)

January Bee Blocks

Although I downed tools for a few weeks at the beginning of January, I did sneak back into the sewing room twice to fulfil my Bee commitments for the month. (Can't keep those Queen Bees waiting for pretties!)

First up was Katy's block in the Modern Stitching Bee.

She asked for a single large block instead of the usual two, so this biggie is 18.5" x 24.5".  Katy's quilt is going to be a variety of icy blue wonky blocks with scrappy pieced centres.  Making this reminded me a lot of the wonky grey quilt I made for my brother and I know Katy will have a great quilt when all her blocks are in.

In hipBees Collette has plans for a funky floating log cabin quilt and sent us each a pack of pre-cut strips in a selection of lovely fabrics from her palette of navy, red, coral, yellow, aqua and grey.  

I really like how these colours work together (they aren't very true in my photo) and am interested to see Collete's finished quilt top come together.  Should be a stunner!

November Bee Blocks

It has taken me a little longer than usual this month to finish up my Bee blocks, but here they are:

For Jennie in Modern Stitching Bee we are making her star blocks with a solid centre (range of colour options suggested by Jennie) and low volume background pieces.  Jennie has written her own tutorial for this block if you're interested.

Catherine's hipBee choice was the Jared Takes A Wife block which you can find on quiltville.com.  This block has certainly sparked a bit of interest on IG, perhaps because Catherine's fabric selections make it very striking and perhaps also because it's a block which isn't so familiar to us.

In spite of the fact that this block is made from several units which in themselves are really straightforward, I had a humdinger of a time making them.  I was reaching for the stitch ripper more than just to correct this

Oops!  I just seemed to be having one of those days when my brain refused to co-operate.  I did eventually pull it together and finish both blocks, though some of the points are not as well aligned as they should be - hope they don't spoil things too much for your quilt Catherine.