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They were all completed and mailed on time, but I'm finally showing you my April, May and June bee blocks.

April

Stash Bee: We made these adorable paper pieced cranes for Liz in April. She was looking for blues and teals, but open to other colors, so I made two. It was a quick and easy block to put together.

do. Good Stitches: In April, Diane had us make these simple spool and square blocks in this great color scheme: apple red, dark navy, cream + rain (grayish-blue-greens). I really liked the randomness generated by having each block be any combination of spools and plain squares. Here are my three blocks.

The Bee Hive: We made bright and funky Tic Tac Toe blocks for Nicole. We had also made this block in February. It goes together very quickly and I find it easy to be very precise with matching the seams. It was really fun to choose some loud fabrics.

Nicole has put together her (soon to be queen size with a border) quilt top with blocks from the bee and about 14 blocks that she made herself. Isn't it so fabulous!?

Nicole's Scrappy Happy X's
Scrappy Happy X's by Nicole (@saphre1964 on IG)
Nicole's Scrappy Happy X's 2
Scrappy Happy X's by Nicole (@saphre1964 on IG)

May

Stash Bee: In May, Hive 1 made Kaleidescope blocks in yellow, lime green, dark teal, red-orange and light lilac for Jackie. I had a great time pulling these fun colors and digging into my low-volume stash. Jackie gave us the option of making a positive or negative block. I decided to make one of each.

do. Good Stitches: We made some large scrappy flying geese. The geese measure 4.5" by 8.5" (unfinished). Ailish asked us to use mostly lime, avocado, bright green -- with some turquoise/aqua - on a scrappy gray background. Here's what I came up with for my blocks.

The Bee Hive: In May we made the double star block. Lisa provided us some Essex linen, so there would be some commonality throughout the blocks. This was my first time working with the Essex linen and I think it got me past my fear of cutting into the yardage for my Patchwork City project. She had admired the green print in my block for Nicole the previous month, so I used it again for her block.

June

Stash Bee: In June we made this Loopy block for Leo. She was great with her specifics of what she wanted and didn't want for fabrics. The size of the block surprised me when I started cutting fabric. I knew it was 16", but 16" is big. I really like the graphic, geometric pattern and look forward to seeing how Leo sets the blocks.

The Bee Hive: For June, we made Wanta Fanta block. I had a great time putting this together, because I used 34 different fabrics in this 12" block. Kylie didn't want blenders (which is the majority of my stash), so I had to rifle through my scrap bin to find stuff to use. Overall, I was pleased with how this came together. I could totally see using the pattern in the future. I love the illusion of curves it creates when many blocks are put together (and you get a little distance from it).

July

This month I'm the Queen for Hive 1 of Stash Bee. I decided on this Simply Woven block with rainbow colored strips. I'm so excited for the scrappy quilt that will result. And excited to have some fun mail coming my way. My first package has already arrived. :-) Here's my sample block:

Thanks for visiting!

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In 2004, I "gave" my brother a "quilt" for Christmas. It was a work in progress and I really had the best of intentions of finishing it up and handing over the finished quilt shortly thereafter. Here's what it looks like today:

There are 8 completed blocks.

Here's the day I gave it to him:

baseball quilt

Not such impressive progress in 10 1/2 years, huh?

I must say, I'm much more excited about working on a number of other projects I currently have going. But, my goodness, they are snowball blocks! They shouldn't take long. However, I think once I get going on this project I'm going to have to rework the overall plan for it since my brother is now 6'5". So this month's goal is to finish piecing these blocks. There. I've put it out there. Now I'm accountable to all of you. Here's to making progress this month and turning it into a Q3 finish!

Anyone else working on an embarrassingly old WIP?

Linking up to A Lovely Year of Finishes July Goal Post.

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At the beginning of this year, I taught my son to quilt. He has just finished his second quilt. This time he designed and made a doll quilt for his sister. She celebrated her 3rd birthday last month with a rainbow party, so he made her a rainbow doll quilt. (It's a bit of a belated gift. When she opened the present yesterday morning, she thought that meant that she's 4 now. ;-))

He started by deciding on a finished size (16" by 24") and drafting a plan before raiding my stash for fabrics.

For his last project, he pieced the top by sitting on my lap, sewing with me. This time he did all the piecing by himself. He was so proud that he finished the quilt top in one day. ;-) Like last time, he did all the quilting solo. This time he decided to jazz things up. Each strip of the quilt has two lines of quilting, one in straight line quilting and the other in some fancy stitching. This was a compromise, because he really wanted to quilt "swirls all over" and I just didn't have it in me to start teaching him free-motion quilting just yet. He chose the binding fabric, but I pieced and attached it for him. (I sure love a striped binding!)

And, of course, the label. I just love his handwriting on the project. (My daughter was a little put out that her name wasn't on it anywhere, so maybe we'll have to squeeze a "to" line on there somewhere.)

Thank you for visiting.

Helping with this finish is one of my Q2 Finish Along goals. I'm linking up with the Q2 Finishes party.