The Second Half

Here is the Bee Blessed quilt top all pieced with the second half added - a whopping 60.5" x 83" (well, whopping to me anyway).  The colours are a bit bleached out in this pic but trust me they are bold and bright and look glorious against that navy background.  Judith and I have worked together piecing the word blocks for the quilt and I have really enjoyed planning and stitching square motifs to "fit" the row widths.  Good workout for the brain!

It might sound funny, but I think I have pieced a little bit of my heart along with my prayers into this quilt for its very special recipient.

Half a quilt

Been working away shaping the words into rows for the Bee Blessed quilt.  This has proved to be a lot of maths for a Friday night and a wee bit nerve wracking to be sure that I'm keeping a good balance between all of the colours.  Needs a wee header strip of navy just to properly complete this top half of the quilt, but I think I like it.  This is only half the quilt - this baby is going to be HUGE!

Hope you all have a nice weekend ahead!

Bee-ing busy

If you've read Judith's Words Post from last weekend you'll know that she and I have been piecing words together for a Bee Blessed nominee.  The intended recipient of this quilt had a skiing accident at the end of 2012 and is now fighting paralysis in his legs.  From all that we have heard of him, he's a fighter and an inspiration and we really do long for healing for this young, active man.  The quilt we have in mind will have words of encouragement which have been specifically chosen to fit what we have learned of him.

To the words I pieced last week - hope, joy and inspire - and to Judith's very relevant words - peace and faith - I have added one more:

Hopefully, these words will be a blessing at this unexpectedly difficult time in this young man's life. Now we have to work a little more magic and make these words into an interesting quilt top.  Back with more soon I hope.

At Bee Blessed we have also been donated a number of fabric panels, so this weekend I picked up a couple and tried to prepare them a little for the group to work on next time we meet.  I'm hoping that this jolly little gardener girl panel will make a happy little pram quilt for our donations.  There isn't much to do with this panel except quilt it nicely, but I did open up a donated butterfly pillowcase and piece some extra fabric to bring it to size to make a backing.  I just love those bright, vibrant butterflies and think they compliment the front panel so nicely.

The central panel of this baby quilt top was also generously donated to us and I thought that it would make a great baby girl pram quilt if we could enlarge it a little.  I like picking up these wee projects and trying to work out how to make something from what we've got.  I enjoy the challenge, though sometimes it's a bit of a risk.  At one point I feared this was going to be a pepto bismol coloured fiasco.  Although it remains much pinker than I'm used to, I think I managed to diffuse the bubblegum kona a little with the addition of those primary coloured wonky stars.  Oh, how I do enjoy making wonky stars!  They are really fun, and some of these ones have actual wonky bits this time!

So there you have it, a wee bit of me bee-ing busy!