Soul Blossoms D9P Quilt

The problem with this hobby is that even when common sense is telling you not to take on any more big projects, beautiful fabrics and creative longings just keep coming and eventually overrule that common sense altogether (sometimes it really doesn't take that long)!

So...  my teenage niece LOVED her Soul Blossoms cushion that I gifted her for Christmas (what a relief!), remember it?

And, in among the other more random fabrics in my little "stash" are sitting the remains of the Soul Blossom fqs that I bought to have a good variety in her cushion.  At the time I justified the purchase of such a selection because I really loved them myself and thought I would make something for me with the leftovers.  However, seeing how much she loved them I want to use the remaining fabrics to make her a quilt she can love too and this fits in rather nicely with the fact that her sweet 16th is in Feb and I need to have a pressie for her (would help if it was in March actually, but I haven't yet learned how to magically shift a person's date of birth).

So with some very careful cutting to get 100 Soul Blossom squares from the remaining fqs (I had enough fabric for 102 squares!)  I now have this little pile of loveliness - with a new piece for binding - to make into 9 patches and then chop up again to make them disappear.  (Am I mad?)

Here's to another quilt in the making and hopefully making her even happier than her Christmas pressie did!

Grannies Eat Your Hearts Out!

It has been (lovingly and humorously) said that our last lot of soft hued, vintage fabric style log cabin blocks for Bee Blessed were "Granny Blocks".  Well, today us Bees got together, sorted, trimmed and pieced the "grannies"  into four lovely quilt tops.

Sorting and laying out (aka log cabin carpet)

Auditioning border fabric to increase the size of this little green and red quilt
(and Heather made up another lovely block to fill in the missing gap). 

Ros gets cracking on the pink/lavenders quilt.

Fully pieced pinks/browns/creams - this one is warmer and pinker than this pic looks.

There is another soft blue quilt top but I seem to be missing pics of it. Must get some next time.

So there you have it - another busy Bee afternoon.  Thank you all for the beautiful blocks you sent us - any granny should be proud of these!

Bee Blessed Blocks for January

My New Year sewing and blogging has gotten off to a slow start but I've finally got off the ground with a couple of blocks for this month's Bee Blessed which is meeting tomorrow. (Yep, thought I'd really better get my finger out!)  So here they are:

Woven block

Snowball Block

For the next few months we haven't prescribed any particular block for Bee Blessed.  So, as long as the unfinished block measures 12.5" square we have freedom to challenge ourselves to something new or make an old favourite as we please.  (BTW - If you'd like to be one of our online Bee members you can join us in this venture - just pop over to the flickr group and get in touch - or leave a comment here and I'll get back to you.)  It's going to be fun to see what everybody chooses to do.  Then with our stash of blocks we'll see what works together and create some sampler quilts to donate.

This month I had planned to use the Modern Blocks book which I LOVE,

but somehow I got sidetracked by the blocks that Jenna posted for her Sew Happy Quilt QAL.  They were lovely to make - not too taxing, but still interesting - and I'm pretty happy with them.  Thanks Jenna!  I think the problem with the Modern Blocks blocks was that I was just so indecisive about which of the MANY I wanted to make and Jenna's two block tutorial kind of helped me with a neat little packaged set when I really just needed to be getting on with it.  Got to be more assertive with myself for next time!

Spreading the word

Hello Folks!

Today I'm just spreading the word re a new BOM QAL that looks like it's going to be very cute.

April over at Making Ends Meet is hosting a free BOM called Hello Sun.  It's patchwork and applique using the sketching technique and a few wee simple embroidery stitches - would be great practice if you fancied a go.

I'm not joining myself (though I am always tempted by cuteness) as I still have two of last year's QALs to finish, you could say three if you allow for the Farmer's Wife which is a relationship in sad neglect at present.

Anyway, if you fancy an applique BOM QAL pop over to April's blog for the January block instructions and join the flickr group too.  Have fun!

Welcome 2012!

December Birdie Stitches

I managed to finish up the final Birdie Stitches block on Christmas Eve -

I changed this one a little bit from Little Miss Shabby's design because with the parcels in the original it was quite similar to my redesign of the November block (which I redesigned because Thanksgiving is not a holiday I celebrate).  In part, that's been the beauty of this BOM - Corey's designs have been gorgeous but there has been plenty of scope to rework those that didn't quite work for me.

So, to add to my 2012 stitching plans I now have 12 Birdie blocks to make up into a quilt.  One of these days ....

Hope you are all putting together your 2012 stitching plans too - look forward to seeing what 2012 will bring from your creative hands!

Attention MAC quilters

If you're a MAC user and have wistfully read and re-read the system requirements for EQ7 and mourned its incompatibility with MAC then you need Jackie's great tutorials for MAC Numbers.

Check out her blog and you tube posts here:

• Lesson 1
• Lesson 2
• Lesson 3

I am so delighted to find these tutorials and Jackie's videos are nicely paced and very well explained, so if you fancy a go click the links above.

See what you will be able to do after just the first couple of lessons -

Can't wait to play around a bit more!

I also think those of you working with Microsoft Excel could probably do something very similar if you were able to work out the Excel equivalent functions that Jackie points to in Numbers.  Might be worth a peek!