Tag Archives: bee blocks

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Here's the Q4 bee block report. I've chosen to only continue with The Bee Hive and do. Good Stitches moving forward, but I'll continue with the quarterly reports. I also share the blocks as I finish them on Instagram, if you aren't already following me there. :-)

October

Stash Bee: Lyssa asked us to make 16.5" x 12.5" bookshelf blocks for her. In her post she shared some of her interests which I had a great time incorporating into her block. She told us, "In addition to sewing, I love gardening, baking, hiking, skiing, biking, reading, playing board games, gnomes, the beach, collecting dishes, traveling, waterskiing, and hosting dinner parties."

The Bee Hive: We made the paper-pieced Star Plus block for Laura. Yellow and navy is a great classic combination and I'm sure the finished quilt will be stunning.

do. Good Stitches: In October we made these Mosaic blocks by Patchwork Square for Diane. I love the fun scrappy look of these charm friendly blocks.

 

November

Stash Bee: For our last block of the year Bev chose the Quatrefoil block (which is actually a Bee Hive tutorial). Her colors were aqua, pink, lime green, orange, yellow and red which gave us a lot to chose from. I immediately gravitated to the yellow and pink print in my stash which I had yet to use. Since that one was a little wild, I think it paired nicely with the lime green and aqua blenders I used in the other positions.

The Bee Hive: Our November block was purple, yellow and grey Spinwheel blocks for Amanda. I love the pop of yellow, and I'm always excited to be working with purple!

do. Good Stitches: Ailish challenged us with some improv piecing this month. The theme was symbols: "anything from plus signs, Xs, asterisks, pound signs etc." And we were asked to use bright fabrics in red, orange yellow or green with a black background. I knew immediately that I wanted to make an ampersand. I quickly got my first block done. Improv hashtags are fast! But it took me quite a while to complete my ampersand. Overall I'm quite happy with it. Though I'm not sure I'd try one again! I used eight fabrics for a total of 61 pieces to make the ampersand block. I used darting, y-seams and hand piecing (for two tricky seams). I lost count the number of times I had to rip out seams and the total time spent on the block (many episodes of Once Upon a Time, thank you Netflix).

 

December

The Bee Hive: In December, Tisha chose for us to make the Houndstooth block. She picked a variety of solid colors as our inspiration and wanted our choice to be paired with a black and white print. I chose to go with the turquoise color. These blocks went together super quicky. The striped sections are paper pieced and they are easy to chain piece since they are just rectangular strips of fabric to start with. (The tutorial gives instructions for cutting these strips before piecing, which I appreciated.) A great big thank you to Tisha for running our hive this year! Next month is our last month for the 2015 bee and finally my month to be queen, but I'll be continuing for 2016 with The Bee Hive.

 

The rest of my 2015 bee blocks can be found in these previous posts: January, February, March, Q2, Q3.

Thanks for visiting! I'd love to hear if you've joined a bee for the first time 2016.

I'm linking up to Let's Bee Social.

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Anyone else feel like they are on a race to complete goals before the end of the year? One of my big goals for 2015 was to work down my WIP list. Unfortunately, I added quite a few projects to the list this year, but I am doing my best to knock many of my projects into the finished column before the end of the year. Here's the binding for my next four quilt finishes. Okay, one is actually for my son's finish, but since I help him, then I get half credit, right?

 

Two of those are for Christmas gifts, so I'm just about down to the wire on those deadlines. I'm about 40% done quilting this 60" X 72" lap quilt. I was inspired by Jessica's woodgrain pattern that I saw on her Top 10 Tips: Quilting Large Quilts on Your Home Machine post. See her Stripey quilt in #9 of her post for my inspiration. Tons of great ideas in her 10 tips, too!

I'm quilting mine with aurifil #2915 (very light brass). I don't even know how I ended up with this spool. (Was it maybe in the sampler of aurifil that I got from you an eternity ago, Sarah N?) I like the rich color and the great contrast on my dark fabrics. It blends in somewhat with the backing fabric, which I'll show off when it's done.

 

We're nearing the end of this year's The Bee Hive quilting bee, I need to make the December block and then January is my month to be queen bee. So I worked a bit on both of those tasks. I'm making a couple Houndstooth blocks this month, so I printed my paper piecing patterns and cut fabric for those:

And I also pulled fabrics to make a couple sample blocks for my month so I can get that email out to my hive just after Christmas:

Perhaps I'll be sewing my sample blocks on Christmas Day?

 

Yesterday I didn't manage to spend any time sewing (oops), so this afternoon will be spent quilting and binding the Christmas gifts.

Thanks for visiting.

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In June I showed you my Q2 bee blocks. Here's the Q3 bee block report.

July

The Bee Hive:  Kristen chose these low volume and blue Ripples blocks for her month. I had a great time pulling in a ton of different fabrics to use in this one. What fun this is going to be when she gets it all together.

do. Good Stitches: In July Julie picked these blocks. The 12" blocks went together very quickly. I loved using that spoon fabric for the first time!

Stash Bee: July was my month for Stash Bee and I picked Rainbow Simply Woven blocks. Here's the block I made as a sample, and mine with the first 8 blocks that I received. I've gotten all the blocks from my bee (no current photo of the whole group) and want to make some more to go with them before I start piecing them together. Not sure what size quilt I'm aiming for yet. I love these. Thanks to everyone in my bee!

 

August

Stash Bee: We made Curved Log Cabin blocks for Jennifer. I made mine on the late side, so I picked purple to round out the palette she received from the group. The sewing went together quickly on these (it felt much faster than the cutting). Maybe it helped that I was working with one of my favorite colors!

do. Good Stitches: Heather chose these blocks for us to make in August. I felt a little too lazy to mark my blocks like she showed, so I created a paper pieced section for each three piece corner for each star. I even managed to chain paper piece them in long strips... which was a little nutty, but helped make things go more quickly. I think her option for us making our blocks with three (and a blank) or 4 stars will create an interesting design element in the finished quilt.

 

September

do. Good Stitches: This month we made solid jewel tone and white Disappearing 4-Patch blocks (finished size 8"). Quick and easy, but since my stash is lacking in solids I'm glad I could find a good variety of jewel tones.

Stash Bee: Katie asked us to make Scrappy Crossroads blocks for her. Her palette was navy, blue, teal, orange and gold (and maybe touches of dark purple). I had fun going through my past project scraps to cut 2 1/2" squares. There are 48 feature fabrics in this block! Do you recognize any of these from my finished projects?

The Bee Hive: Last month I cut into Halloween fabric for the first time to make my Halloween Mini for the swap. It was so fun to work on and I was glad that Lisa gave me an excuse to use some more of my Halloween fabric for her Double Star block. She loves Halloween and skulls but wants to maker her project "fun and quirky." I thought this guy was the perfect choice!

 

Have you participated in a quilting bee? If so, which one? What was your favorite part? If you haven't participated in a bee and would like to try one, Stash Bee signups for 2016 open on October 28th.