Sunday, September 2, 2012

Fab Bee Blocks

thanks for all the love for my map quilt guys!


i'm really happy that i finally blogged it, cause i got to show you all the awesome photos, but also because i have SO MANY THINGS to blog, i need to start getting caught up!


such as bee blocks! i have so many to blog about!


first up, the Fab Bee, which is mostly made up of local people that i knew before the bee started, but also includes a few further away who i've gotten to know since.


Holly was the queen bee for May, and she stuck with neutrals for her block, which i surprised myself by loving! she sent us each a bundle of seven neutral fabrics, along with a teensy bit of solid coloured fabric, one colour for each of us. she also made a pinterest board of neutral quilts that inspired her - i'm sure they'll inspire you too!

remember the "It's Not About Age, It's About Attitude" tote that i made awhile ago? i made it right after i made Holly's block, you can totally see the similarities.

hollys block

signature block in progress

Holly even sent along embroidery floss that matched the accent colour in each of her blocks! she's so amazingly organized! i am less organized though, and didn't manage to get a picture of my signature block after i finished the embroidery...


Barb and Holly were apparently thinking alike, because she planned to do neutrals in June as well! for her block she wanted us to work with stripes, and asked us not to use a ruler for cutting, to just use our scissors. i think some of us were scared!

barbs big block

though most of the fabric that Barb sent were dyed solids, one of them was a neutral print, and i reversed some pieces of it to add a little bit more visual interest to my blocks.

barbs littler blocks

after i finished the one big block, i sewed together all of my leftovers to make her a few littler blocks as well.


Darlene went back and forth, but eventually decided to have us make Stacked Book Blocks, cause they're her favourite. she made a pinterest board full of blocks that she loved (along with a few of her other options), and sent us a big bundle of fabrics that just screamed DARLENE as soon as you opened them!

darlenes block

can you guess which fabrics i added? there were two!

her block felt so simple compared to the others i've done for this bee (such as Cynthia's heart blocks!), so i decided to add a little bit of embroidery as a secret little message for her. i put it on the very top piece of the block, so that she could remove it and put it somewhere else if she liked.

can you read it copy

it's very tiny! i used two strands of 50wt(ish) sewing thread to embroider it.

darlene

i used a Pilot FriXion pen to draw on my letters, so you can kind of see the white marks it left under my embroidery, hopefully that'll wash out after Darlene finishes the quilt.

awesome

Ellen (who doesn't have a blog, amazingly) left her month super open, just asking us to make blocks with an owl, however we wanted. she sent us a bundle of prints along with a navy blue solid for the background, and let us do our own thing. i was originally thinking that i'd paperpiece an owl, perhaps using Sonja's Easy Peeping Owl pattern that i sewed a long time ago, but then Sonja went and did a talk at the August FVMQG meeting, along with her patterns, and a few other people dibsed her owls first!

after i learned that, i thought about drafting my owl paperpiecing pattern, but i let it mull around in my brain for a little bit. then i had a brainstorm! i made up a sample to test my idea (which i'll blog separately, cause i LOVE it!) and then went full force into owl-mania.

big owl

after i made the first one, i couldn't stop, and i still had fabric that i hadn't used, so i made two smaller owls as well.

little owls
(i used a ton of starch on the eyes, but that'll wash out! that's why they look like they have marks on them, etc)

the owls use a whole list of techniques, which makes me super happy for some reason. they've got half square triangles (HSTs), 3D flying geese, improv curves, a prairie point (also known as a burr or a pinecone), and applique circles. i'm already planning more!



i'm all caught up with this bee, thank goodness, and i received the fabric for the September block from Berene last week. i'm very excited to get going on it!

8 comments:

Mrs Flying Blind... said...

Your blocks look sashing, especially those neutral ones - off to check out those Pinterest boards x

Cherie said...

Wow what a great lot of blocks! The stack of books is so awesome =D

LimeRiot said...

I couldn't love those neutral blocks more!! FANTASTIC!!

Cynthia F said...

Awesome blocks Amy!!! I'm so glad you're in our Bee!!

Anonymous said...

Amy I love you owls!! I am looking forward to making some and seeing them at the meeting!!

felicity said...

Wow! What an awesome roundup of gorgeous blocks! You've been busy!

Chandra said...

Fun to see Holly go neutral, I'm sorry I will miss the guild challenge in greys this month, feels kind of similar!

Holly said...

I love my neutrals block with waves that you made me! Congrats on getting caught up with bee blocks. Have you started September's block yet?

Related Posts with Thumbnails