The dresden I showed you in my last post was a warm-up for my bee block this month. Joanna picked out some beautiful fabrics, and her dear, patient husband cut plastic templates for us each to use (and keep).
This brings me to my love/hate relationship with scissors. I decided instead of tracing the template and cutting it out by hand, I would layer a ruler on top of it and use my rotary cutter. Looks like I may want to pick up one of those Easy Dresden rulers for future dresden adventures. I did, however, have fun using my fancy new pinking shears (Christmas gift from the little brother) to cut out the circle. Apparently pinked edges on curves help the seams lie flat.
For the first time, I got my fabric out of the mailbox and finished the block on the same day. I found it easiest to sew the wedges into quadrants and square those up before moving on. I had to trim a bit, but it lies nice and flat now. I also opted for a zig-zag stitch rather than a straight edge stitch or an appliqué stitch.
Now onto some handiwork...
I have been procrastinating lately. I haven't touched the Geese and Coins quilt since my last post. I've just about given up on having it done for the Blogger's Quilt Festival. I would have to have it done, photographed, and posted by Friday.
To distract myself by the lack of things I've accomplished lately, I have a lovely assortment of bee blocks coming my way! October was my month the Bee in my Bonnet virtual quilting bee. I sent out some jummy Robert Kaufman Christmas-themed fabric, and pretty much asked my fellow bee members to go to town. Here's what I've seen so far:
Amazing, right? My bee members graciously allowed me to post their photos, please click the links above to see each photo in its full glory on Flickr.
I'm going to add a 2" red or green border to each block. Here's a sketch I made last month before I shipped off my fabric:
Just as I was about to publish this post, Julie H. posted this beauty to Flickr:
I haven't made my own block for this quilt yet. Actually, I haven't decided if I'm going to or not. Julie F. made two blocks, so I may make one myself for the front and work the extra block into the back, or I may not make a block.
I'm thinking of doing fairly simple, sparse quilting on this one so I can have it ready to snuggle under after Thanksgiving, and so I still have time to work on Christmas gifts.
I have been on a bento box kick lately, first with bee blocks...
Not sure what a virtual quilting bee is? Check out this post from Oh, Fransson! and the ever-fabulous Quilting Bee Blocks site.
These are for Julie from the bee in my bonnet. Julie asked for a 13" and a 5" square-in-a-square block. She sent a ton of fabric, so I made an extra big block. Julie was inspired by this Film in the Fridge quilt, but asked us to make the rings whatever sizes we wanted.
It was so much fun, I decided to whip up a quick Halloween wall hanging with some fat quarters I got at my LQS while out looking for fabric to send out for my month of the bee.
I got to use my walking foot for the first time quilting the straight lines on this baby. It's loud, but I don't know how I ever lived without it!
I also used my free-motion/darning foot to create a spiderweb pattern with the quilting. It shows up better in the close-up photo. I'm getting a bit better at free-motion quilting, but I'm still struggling to keep the stitch length consistent. I'm really liking the gray thread, too. It looks like a real spiderweb, sometimes it looks invisible and sometimes it smacks you in the face.
Do you have any holiday projects going on?
So for some reason it seems that when I commit to Amy's One Thing, One Week Challenge, I tend to flake out. I know Amy isn't trying to make anyone feel guilty for not meeting their goal, and I don't really feel guilty. I had an awesome week — I just didn't get any sewing done. (To quote Jaybird's last post: "as often happens... plans end up just plans.. and life happens."
My goal was to finish the top of the Garden Windows quilt and my August bee blocks. Well, all that's left on Garden Windows is the border, but in truth I had reached that point a week ago. I did knock out a bee block though!
(Sorry for the less-than-stellar quality. My camera was dead and I was running out the door to work, so I snapped this with my phone.)
Last night a switch flipped in my brain, and I went into productivity mode. I stayed up late and read half of a 300-page book that's been sitting on my nightstand for months. That felt amazing, and gave me some good stuff to think about. This morning (I use that term to loosely define the few hours after I wake up, though it's technically afternoon), my roommate, our friend Alex and I did a yoga dvd in our living room. It wasn't quite my kind of thing, but after doing that it was impossible to sit around and just hang out. (I think I'm going to try going to a local yoga studio tomorrow afternoon!)
So I busted out the graph paper, made a quick sketch, did some math, and whipped out Julie's first block for the Bee in my Bonnet. It felt good! Julie asked for interesting squares inspired by these two quilts. I had been putting these off, waiting for inspiration to strike, and this one just came to me today. I think we create better things using that process, so I'm trying not to force myself too much. If I don't feel motivated to work on something, I know I won't put as much care and attention to detail into it.
ETA: Speaking of bee blocks, pop over to Deanna's blog and see the first finished Bee in my Bonnet quilt!
I'm going to leave you with a somewhat-depressing (sorry!) quote from the book I'm reading, because it really resonated with me. That's all I'll say on the matter. here ya' go:Many people want desperately to believe, but just can't. They may feel tortured that their faith has evaporated, but they can't will it back into existence. If an autopsy could be done on their spiritual life, the cause of death wouldn't be murder or suicide. It would be natural causes — the organic death of a belief system that collapsed under the weight of experience and reason.
So it occurred to me that I've yet to show you guys the blocks I've been making for my Virtual Quilting Bee (VQB), the Bee in my Bonnet. So here's a little wrap-up of what I've contributed to our first quarter...
Deanna was nice/brave enough to volunteer to go first, and got us kicked off in May with string blocks:
We used a white square for the foundation, rather than paper, and they came out really well. Deanna's actually pretty close to having the quilt top put together, and I can't wait to see it!
Then, for June, Kelly requested some wonky log cabin blocks. I dug some out of my stash to make two blocks for her:
This was my first time making anything wonky, and you can tell how my first block (on the left) turned out more straight than wonky! But I think the different degrees of wonkiness will play off each other well in Kelly's finished quilt.
For July, Candi gave us some lovely open-ended instructions: right angles, no wonkiness please. She also had a beautiful array of fabrics. So I perused the Quilting Bee Blocks Flickr group, and found some glorious inspiration. I followed the tutorial at Little Miss Shabby and cut what seemed like a billion 1½" squares. I "sketched" out my designs (using computer-generated graph paper, a sharpie, and some highlighers) and laid out all the teeny pieces on my new, big table. Each block took about three hours, but I am so happy with how they turned out:
It's going to take all my willpower to take these to the post office tomorrow :)
I love how each month I get to learn something new or try a new technique. If you're interested in joining a VQB, check out the Quilting Bees 101 page of the Quilting Bee Blocks blog. There's also a link from the blog to their fabulous Flickr group, which is just teeming with inspiration.
This is entirely unrelated, but I finally figured out how I want to piece the back of my Hexagon QAL quilt, and it's left me with an untouched layer cake of Glam Garden. I love this fabric line, but I'm currently at a loss as to what to do with the layer cake. What would you make with it?
I just had to buy the new American Patchwork at Quilting magazine at the grocery store today. I really need to renew my subscription... Anyway, I was flipping through and whose bright smiley faces did I see? Bradie and Julie, featured in a full-page Moda Bakeshop ad. I have to admit for a moment I was a bit star struck. I read their blogs religiously, and I've exchanged e-mails with these ladies! I've been trying to hunt down the May/June issue of McCalls Quilting Magazine to read Julie's article. I'm hoping it will show up at my local Jo-Ann store soon.
I've been wanting to join a virtual quilting bee for a little while now. It seems like such a great way to meet other quilters out there on the internets, as well as create something for someone without having to buy fabric. For anyone unfamiliar with how bees work, it's typically a group of 12 quilters. Each month, one of the members mails out fabric and maybe some design requests or block layouts to the other 11 members. Everyone makes a block and mails it back, so by the end of a year, everyone has a quilt made by the bee members. Elizabeth at Oh! Frasson has a great post about quilting bees. There's also a brand spankin' new blog called Quilting Bee Blocks (click on over there, they're having a give-away!(, that grew out of a Flickr group. Well that Flickr group just happens to be one of the best places to get the scoop on upcoming bees looking for members. Quite a few people have posted in past couple of days saying they were interested in a beginner's bee. Well, one of the group's admins, Erin, suggested we stop trolling for a beginner's bee and go ahead and start one. And, well, I may have volunteered to be the "bee mama." So, if you're interested in jumping in head-first with me, shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment here.
