Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Worker Bee

I love sewing and making quilts.  I take a long time to finish projects because I am a procrastinator and have questionable time management skills.  I want to make everything, all at once.  That's where joining bees comes in.

Over the last year and a half I have been in three different bees.  All three had different guidelines, group members and focus.


I was challenged to improve my paper piecing skills,










purchased fabrics that I normally didn't look at twice and made blocks that I thought I wanted to use for quilts and then realized that one or two blocks were enough for me.

I like the idea of deadlines ( a good idea for procrastinators) and I like having small finishes.  I always included a personal note and felt good after a trip to the post office.
Now that my third bee is winding to a close, I am reflecting on whether to join another.  These bees have given me challenges and food for thought.


In one bee, we lost a member early on, and I received all my blocks.


In another bee, we started with 12 or 13 members and I have received from five members.



In the final bee, we lost members, and it still took months to get blocks from everyone.



I should also mention that I joined a few quilt alongs, which, I'm still doing even though the events are long over.  I do work best with deadlines and perhaps if I didn't have too much going on, I might even meet one or two.


I learned that I have to say no, evaluate my time commitments and be more realistic about how much time I need to complete a project
- and to always keep in mind just how many projects I am working on.

Should I join another?  I think I'll give myself some time before I do.


Sunday, October 26, 2014

Slow, Steady Progress




Quite some time ago, I joined The Library Project with Adrienne from Chezzetcook Modern Quilts and one of the quilts I committed to making is Summer Sunshine from Material Obsession.  You can read about my choices here.
 I started with a collection of scraps and sewed interfacing to scraps - lots of them!
I slit the centers of the interfacing, turned them right side out and then began pressing them to white squares.

After making 36 blocks, I then drew the stems, and hand embroidered them.

I used 10" squares as I had several Kona White Layer Cakes, searched my stash for a suitable sashing and sewed them together.  I just ordered fabric for the final border, binding and backing.  With any luck, this will be finished before the end of the year!

Linking up with "Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?"
                            "Let's Bee Social"

Monday, September 29, 2014

A Garden Grows

Just because I've been absent from blogland doesn't mean I've been absent from sewing - not at all!  I've been quite busy since my last post.  In fact, too busy!  I just finished participating in two bees and am currently participating in a third bee.  It's been quite a challenge to keep on schedule, work on my own projects and return to my job in August.  Given all that - let me show you a finish.

For some background on this project, you can read about it here and here.

curves, Atomic Flower
A Garden Grows
72" x 72"

The background is Kona Expresso.  At first, I wasn't sure about this color and now I see it was the perfect color for the flowers to grow.

curves,

A bit of shade from the tree.

curves, walking foot quilting

I played with the quilting.  I used a walking foot and started with straight line quilting. 

curves

I then tried different quilting patterns in different sections.  It was definitely an experiment which I enjoyed.

curves

 I machine stitched the binding to the quilt and finished it with hand stitching.

curves

The quilt washed beautifully - soft and crinkly.  Waiting for cooler weather to snuggle under it.


Linking with Let's Bee Social


Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, July 21, 2014

Photo Shoot

This past weekend, my daughter and I did a photo shoot at our local park of both finished and unfinished quilts I have been working on.

quilt photo shoot
Photo Shoot at the Park



Let's start with the finished quilts:

orange peel, scrappy
Scrappy Orange Peel  60" x  84"

I've been working on this quilt for some time.  I quilted using a serpentine stitch on the diagonal.  After quilting it, it took me a while to decide on binding. I used leftover fabric that I had used on my Ladybug Pinwheel quilt.

scrappy, orange peel

scrappy, orange peel, curves


scrappy, orange peel




The Ladybug Pinwheel was made using leftover blocks from a quilt I made for a friend.  I quilted using loops (still practicing FMQ) and used binding to match the backing.  This quilt will be donated.

scrappy pinwheel, ladybugs
Ladybug Pinwheel  39" x 53



binding, scrappy
I love this backing!
Another quilt I am donating is this baby quilt.  In the first two pictures you can see it is not bound yet.  After a few days, binding made from the leftover blocks.  


34" x 39"



And now the unfinished:

I have two new quilt tops that are completed.  I started these back in March when Paula of The Sassy Quilter held her Triangle Quilt Challenge.  I hopped on board immediately but my train got stuck at the station.  I did love using the triangles.  I had no idea what I would make from them, of course, I started cutting without a plan, and cut two different sizes. 




Then I challenged myself to actually sew the pieces together.  I'm loving both tops and just bought the fabric for the backs.





One last thing - new tags!
sew in tags



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Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Bee Block Catch Up

Once school ended, I finally had the time to catch up on bee blocks.  It's been non-stop measuring, cutting, re-measuring, sewing, seam-ripping and re-sewing for many days.  Just so you know, I wasn't really as behind as it appears.   I offered to make missing blocks for everyone in Stash Bee 4.  I enjoyed making the blocks the first time around and knew once the school year ended that I would have extra sewing time. 

For Sara - Stash Bee 4 - January





Celine - Stash Bee 4 - February






Samantha - Stash Bee 4 - March

Sally - Stash Bee 4 - April



Chelsea - Stash Bee 4 - May



Ruth - Global Scrap Bee - May


Stephanie H - Scrap-bee-licous - May


Barb - Global Scrap Bee - June


Linking with:

Let's Bee Social!