Blocks and Bear Paws!

This month in Bee Blessed we are making Friendship Stars:

Super easy and quick to make! These will make a lovely 'friendship' quilt.

In Siblings Together Bee (2), Jenny has asked us to make the blocks from Cloud 9's Field Crossing Quilt. 

Another fab boy quilt in the making for Siblings Together camps next year. 

A few months back I made a few 'girly' blocks to go into a collaborative quilt for a very special little lady!

Photo from Sarah's blog

My special friend, Sarah, had a baby girl in July, and this quilt has been made with love from several of Sarah's quilting bloggy friends!  

Isn't it gorgeous!  Here are my blocks (sorry about the washed out light - it was a very grey summer!)

You can read more about it (& see the cutest baby girl EVER) on Sarah's blog!

And finally, October issue of Popular Patchwork is in the shops now! (I might have a wee project in it! Just sayin'!)

Bye for now!

Jude xo

Big Deep Breaths!

I've had a really stressy day so far.  But I don't want this post to become a rant, so I'm working hard at keeping things in perspective, taking big deep breaths and putting it all down to being tired!

I'm pleased to say that yesterday I managed some non work related sewing, and got my no.3 blocks finished for the Stained QAL:

At this moment in time, I'm so tempted to push all work sewing aside (not the first phrase that came to mind) and carry on with the no.4 blocks for Stained QAL.  They work up like a dream, and that would take me within touching distance of getting the quilt top finished!

But at the moment I'm sitting in the sunshine, hoping that there is some scientific evidence that topping up your vitamin D increases calmness, sanity and world peace!

Bit much to ask for I know!

Onwards and upwards!

Busy Blessed Bees!

I actually remembered to take pictures of our afternoon's creativity and productivity (thanks Janette for the prod!).

Here we all are working on a man quilt.  

left to right: Marion, Janette, Ros, Tina, Sarah

Janette kindly precut lots of dark & light blue strips and made them up into Log Cabin kits, to put together with the red centres that Tina had pre-cut.  Although we were a few members down this round, we still flew through the sewing of these blocks and have nearly 20 blocks already sewn up!

And here is one of the finished log cabin quilts which is being donated to the mum of one of our group.  We hope it will come as a real blessing to her at this difficult time.

A few of our other quilts are now finished and ready to be donated too.

L-R: Pink Log Cabin Quilt (as seen in previous photo); Red/Green Log Cabin Quilt

L-R: Fun-shine Playmat; D9P Adult Quilt; Brown/Cream Log Cabin Quilt

Sorry about the washed out look on this last photo - the sun has actually been shining today!

 

The Blue Log Cabin Quilt is almost finished, so that will make 5 more ready to be handed over for donation to needy homes.

As mentioned above, the man quilt is coming on apace, and the modern sampler quilts are awaiting sashing fabric.  

Thank you so much everyone for your donations of blocks and fabric, time and energy.  These quilts couldn't be made without the help and support of so many talented people.

If you would still like to donate any of the blocks we have been making to date, then they will be gratefully received, and tutorials are available here.  Next week I will post about  the new block we are introducing for March - it's going to be fun!

I Can Do Modern!

Just a few blocks to show you today!

First up, a couple of Bee Blessed blocks for our modern sampler quilt (we're meeting up this Saturday):

Pattern from the 99 Modern Blocks Book

Tutorial for this block here.

Next I've done a couple of blocks to add to my slow-growing pile of red/pink/aqua blocks, which one day will become a quilt!

Don't tell anyone but this was supposed to be 'Quartrefoil', I just didn't read the instructions properly!  Oops!

'Jacob's Ladder'

These are both traditional blocks, but I love the way they can be modernised with more contemporary fabrics & colours.

Jacob's Ladder is part of a series of biblical blocks that Colette is hosting from her blog. Join in with us if you fancy modifying some good ol' fashioned blocks.

And talking of blocks, all my Brit Bee blocks are now in! Yippee!

Poor Jo's blocks have had a dreadful time of it.  The Royal Mail sorting machine decided it was lunchtime and tried to eat Jo's blocks, didn't fancy the taste of them so spat them out again and returned them to Jo minus her siggy!  What a palava!

But they are safe and sound now in the January Brit Quilt family of blocks.  I will take a pic when the sky ever changes from grey here!  Just as soon as I get the 2 remaining siggys (hint, hint - you know who you are!!) I'll get to sewing up the front.  I really love how this is looking so far - squeeee!

My Brit Bee Blocks!

My month was January in the Brit Bee.

Most of my blocks are in from the other 11 wonderful gals, and they look soooo goooood!

I'll show you them all laid out when I get the last ones in.  But I remembered that I still have to make 2 blocks of my own to put with them!!  Just because it was my month to crack the whip, doesn't mean I get to slack off making what the others are making!

So here are my 2 log cabin interpretations:

All 24 blocks will be bordered in this lightweight denim.

I have fallen in love with orange this past year, which is amazing because before that I would have said it was my least favourite colour!

Because of the generosity of my Brit bee-ers, I was able to make up this block entirely from their donated scraps!  Thanks girls - your scraps are so much better than mine!

The 2nd block is traditional in design, but done in rainbow coloured scraps.

As for what I have to make for Miss February, I had great fun playing the other evening, but then ran out of bondaweb!  So just as soon as I get more, I'll get my mugshot finished and sent back to Jennie.

Happy Thursday!

Bee-ing Busy!

Yesterday was Bee Blessed day.

We were small in number, but no less busy.

Laying out the 'Mostly Greens' set

'Mostly browns' set

'Mostly Pinks' Set

There will also be a 'Mostly Blues' set, which has almost the required number of blocks, and then we can lay that one out too!

Almost ready for quilting!

Thank you lovely bloggers if you donated blocks.  I hope you are able to see them in my rather blurry pics (except if you made blue ones! But rest assured, they are being used!).

Thank you also for the lovely sampler blocks which are starting to come in.  They look amazing and we are already getting excited about the wonderful quilts they are going to make!  Don't forget to post a pic of your block on our flickr group.

Until next time!

Back to School!

My 3 darling angels (?!) returned to school today!  That means I now have the house to myself once again, and can start to panic think about all the things I need to be working on!

I haven't been totally lax over the holidays though!  As you know I've been working on Dad's Civil War quilt.  Here are another 3 blocks done.

'Games, Music & Knitting' aka Churn Dash

'Meeting General Lee'

'Mail Delivery' aka Dutchman's Puzzle

That's 8 out of 20 made so far.

And a wee peek on a little something for someone!

Full reveal when the recipient receives it!

There's also a much bigger project brewing for me, which I can't talk about yet, but I'm getting a little excited about!  Perhaps in a few weeks I'll be able to let you in on it!!

So now I'm off to turn the music up full blast and dance around the house naked (no not really, just joking -  the music won't be that loud!).

Have a wonderful Thursday!

More Civil War Blocks!

I know I'm in danger of really boring you, but here are a few more Civil War blocks I've managed to sew over the past few days.

'Merchantable Goods' & 'Special Blessings'. Spot the deliberate mistake in the bottom block!

'Greenfield & Stockton' & 'Bitter Enemy'

I've also been beavering away on some more Log Cabin blocks for Bee Blessed.  Our first get together of 2012 is this Saturday.  

If you would like to make and donate a 12.5" block to our charity bee, have a wee look on our flickr group for inspiration and links to some great block tutes.  

For the next few months we plan to make sampler quilts, so you are free to choose any block design & colour scheme you like!  Or, you can make one of the blocks we've already done using the following tutorials:

Wonky Star Block: Tutorial at The SillyBooDilly 

Disappearing 9 Patch Tutorial

Log Cabin Tutorial

Have a great Tuesday!

A Bee-rilliant Afternoon!

Another gathering of Bee Blessed happened today!  

We had enough blocks donated in time to make up this beauty:

We also beavered away on more D9P blocks from our scraps box (there are lots more incomplete ones too!):

Sorry about the rubbish pics!

And we are making a special quilt for a friend's husband who is seriously ill at the moment.  Instead of using white in the D9P we are using trusty Kona Ash:

We were also quilting & finishing off some of the cot quilts from last month & I'll bring you pics of those when they're all done.

And no Bee Blessed day would be complete without tea, homemade scones, brownies and lots of chat!

Some of the workforce!

So a very productive and enjoyable afternoon was had by all!

We will continue to work on D9P blocks for the next few weeks, and I can't wait to see the promised blocks  I know are still to come from several different parts of the world!  

A huge thank you to everyone for being involved!

Judith xo

Bee Blessed - the next block!

Thank you so much to everyone who made wonky stars for our first Bee Blessed project.

So far we have received over 60 blocks, from 5 different countires, and have made 3 cot quilt tops so far, which we are in the process of quilting and binding.  We have a few blocks left over and know that a few more are still to come in, so we may even have a 4th quilt top!  How fab is that?

For our next project we will be making disappearing 9 patch blocks. 

This will probably be either for an adult or a family.  We aren't setting a colour code this time around, we only ask that the 4 'sliced' squares be plain white (no white on white) as shown in the tutorial below.

As always the unfinished block should be squared to 12.5".

D9P Tutorial:  Assume scant 1/4" seams throughout

1. Cut 4 x 4.75" plain white squares and 5 x 4.75" coloured squares.

2. Lay these out in rows of 3 to get a simple 9 patch (the centre coloured square will end up as the 4 mini squares).

3. Sew  the squares together in rows.

4. Take the rows to the ironing board and iron the seams as follows:

    Top row: iron seams OUT away from the white square

    Middle row: iron seams IN towards the centre coloured square

    Bottom row: iron seams OUT away from white square

5. Now lay the top row on top of the middle row, right sides together, and butt the intersecting seams (they should fit snuggly together because the seams are lying in opposite directions).  Pin the intersections.

6. Sew the rows together, and then repeat step 5 for the remaining bottom row.

Take care as you sew over the seams that are underneath and 'hidden'.  Make sure they don't 'flip' as you sew over them.

7. Iron the 2 seams away from the centre.

8. Now take your piece to the cutting mat, find the halfway point and slice in half.

9. Turn the 2 pieces around, find the halfway point and slice in half again.

10. Rotate 2 opposite pieces 180 degrees to separate out the small centre squares.

11.  Sew the top 2 pieces together, and then the bottom 2 pieces.

12.  Take both pieces to the ironing board and iron one joining seam going in one direction and the other joining seam going in the opposite direction.

13. Lay the 2 pieces rights sides together, and butt the centre seams together & pin.

14. Sew the 2 pieces together and iron this last seam OPEN.

15. Trim the block to 12.5" & stand back and admire your work!

Thank you so much in advance of your support for Bee Blessed and taking the time to make a block or two.

Don't forget to post pictures of your blocks in the Flickr group.

If you don't already have my postal address, just drop me a wee email & I'll send it to you.

Have a great Wednesday!