Bee Blocks

I had such a productive sewing weekend!  My husband just started a new job and was away most of the weekend so it freed up plenty of time for me to sit at my machine and jam to the music on the radio and just sew....  ahhhhhhh.........

I signed up for another round of Sew Pieceful, a monthly block sway on Flickr and got my assignments on Friday so I sewed up a test block and pulled some fabric for my  February swap mates.

I decided to use the Christmas Snowflake Block posted earlier in January by the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild.  They are doing a block of the month for 2014 and this was the modified 12" version they shared.  The original is a scrappy 20" version.  This person requested Red and Grey on Black or Text backgrounds.

I pulled rainbow colors for another swap mate to be put on a black background also:

Another swap mate asked for Purple, Yellow, and Orange on low volume backgrounds and I just happened to have this fabric I just picked up!  Isn't it perfect for the background?

I've got more to share but it will have to wait until tomorrow!  I'm linking up with Stitch by Stich for anything goes mondays.

Happy Quilting!

This is my Circus ... a finished quilt

I made this quilt back in 2012 and it was an instant favorite.  Most of these fabrics I had been hording for two plus years when I first began quilting and discovered that YOU COULD BY FABRIC ONLINE!

Who knew?  I didn't at the time.

It was made using a super easy free video pattern by Missouri Star Quilt Co. with 3 Dudes Quilting designed to work with Jelly Rolls or 2.5" strips.  Basically you just sew strips together into sets of 4 strips.  Then cut them into squares.  Take two squares and layer them right sides together and sew all the way around the outside.  Then slice the blocks diagonally from corner to corner in both directions.  So now you have 4 HST pieces.  Press them open and voila!  You have a HST block with half of the strips running one direction and half of the strips running the other direction.

I backed the quilt with a wonderful soft tan linen fabric and quilted it in a mint thread with wavy lines using my walking foot.  I really like how the sort of organic, free form quilting off-sets the other wise angular nature of this quilt.

I'm calling this my Circus quilt, because of the pretty bunting flag and elephants and streamers and flowers that you'd find at a traveling circus.  I kind of like the name.  Let me know if you think of a better one.

I really love this quilt and I'm so happy with how it came out.  So happy that I actually brought it to work with me and now it sits on my desk waiting to be used when the heaters randomly stop working in the middle of winter (it can get pretty chilly in here).  I love that it adds a nice pop of color to our pretty dully decorated work space.

That's all for today.  Happy Quilting!

A little of this and a little of that.

I've got quite a few WIPs at the moment that I wanted to share with you.

I picked up some 1 1/2" Hexagon English Paper Piecing templates on a shop-hop with my local quilt guild this fall.  I wanted to try it out so I grabbed some 4 1/2" fabric squares that I picked up from a local quilt shop that was going out of business and picked out the greens (my first few were blue before I decided to stick to one color) to start working away.

These have been a fun project to take on the road with me while I'm waiting in line or something.  For the most part I've worked on them at the laundry mat while waiting for washers and dryers.  I think when it's done I might call it my "Laundry Quilt."  I will probably gift this quilt to someone (maybe my Mother in Law) since these more traditional fabrics aren't really my style.

In March I'm taking a sewing class at Nido, the new fabric shop in Burlington, VT.  Some of my girlfriends from college were interested in learning to sew their own clothes and since I'm really only comfortable with 2D objets (read: quilts) I though this might be a fun opportunity to learn some new skills.  We're making the Laurel Dress by Colette Patterns.  It's a simple shift-style dress with lots of options to customize.  To see some of the fantastic versions of this dress check out the Colette Patterns Flikr Group.


I've been really struggling with picking a fabric for this dress.What I like to sew with and what I like to wear are two TOTALLY different things.  Just check out my Apparel Fabrics Pinterest Page for proof.  I've looked at everything from shirting stripes, forest animals, bicycles, neon dots, gauzy florals, and even lace (but that requires essentially making two dress, one in lace and one for a layering shift)

Finally I decided on the Dot Chambray in Indigo from Robert Kaufman's Chambray Union collection.  My fabric came yesterday and I am in love!  It is unbelievably soft and I think it's going to make a beautiful dress that I can wear both to work and casually.  I'm glad that I ordered this fabric when I did.  It's already out of stock again!

Now I just have to wash/iron it and work on cutting out my pattern pieces for my dress.  I think we're going to go to Nido's open sewing night the month before our class for help with that portion though since we're all newbie dressmakers.

Finally,  I've made some more progress on my challenge quilt that I shared last week.  I was able to finish my gem center and I'm really loving the piece so far.  Now for the next challenge.  Piecing curves!

There are a few spots that get a little muddied from lack of contrast (as you can see in the black and white picture below) but overall I'm really happy with the piece.  At this point, I'm definitely not taking it apart.

I'm linking up with this weeks WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Anyhow, that's it for today.
Happy Quilting!

Sew Pieceful February Block Swap

After a few months off I've decided to join back up with the Sew Pieceful Monthly Block Swap that takes place via Flikr.  Signups are taking place now if you want to join up.

It's pretty simple. 

• It's a month to month swap, meaning you can pick and choose whether or not you want to participate each month and there are no long term commitments.  I participated four times last year but took off time this fall and through the holidays
• Generally there are 5 people in a hive, which means you end up making four blocks for someone else and one block for you each month
• Each one of your bee mates will specify a color scheme and background color and you have to do your best to meet their requests
• You choose the block you want to make

For this round I decided to continue with my Red - Orange - Green color palette to try and finish up a quilt I was working on last year.  I've asked for Modern fabrics in various shades of Red and Orange with a hint of sage green on a Grey Background.

I think this is a really striking color palette and can't wait to add the blocks from this round to my previously received blocks.