Brit Bee Catch Up

Having just realised the date on my last (pre-Quiltography) post, I thought I should include a couple of my latest Brit Bee pics.

November
I totally forgot to take photographs of Miss November's blocks, but I can promise you that her quilt is going to be amazing and if we are lucky, we might even get to see the completed version pretty soon :)

January
It seems that I totally messed up with January's pictures too, but you can see the original by Miss January herself...

February
Miss February was Judith's month and she asked for 2 totally different blocks; 1 was a large HST, made up of small HST's that she is going to piece into a large star.

and the second was purple vintage prints in a pez design.

April

Ceri was our wonderful Miss April who asked us each to provide a doodle, that she then cleverly screen printed and sent out to us with the rest of the fabric pack so that we could include it in our blocks! She must have been beavering away for days as we each got back handfuls of charm squares of our own doodles in a variety of colours!

These are the log cabin (isn) blocks that I sent back to her; 

number 1 (with my doodle)

number 2 (with a sketchy fabric)

Phew that was a big catchup, but now I am all up to date and ready to move on with other quilty goodness!

J x

Brit Bee October

I got to work on my super delayed blocks for Susan this week; I had my block all chosen about a month ago, but I have taken forever to get started on it. Susan asked for a star block, for her month in the Bee and I chose the Desperate Housewife's Star from Quilt Jane.

Once I started my foundation paper piecing, I remembered how much I love it (although, not so much picking all the paper out of the backs!) and as Susan had asked for many different sizes of block, I decided to do some extras for her. For my second block I decided to do another Rocky Road to Kansas from Fresh Lemons, at 50% of the normal template size, along the same lines as the one I did for Laura in Round 1.

And I couldn't stop there, my final block is another reduced size block; a corruption of Fresh Lemons' Evening Star, initially I intended to just replace the coloured corners with more background fabric, but part way through piecing and cutting I realised that I didn't have enough Kona Coal to finish, after much unpicking; I replaced the central background fabrics for some more star fabrics and had JUST enough Kona to finish it off!

These blocks are now winging their way back to Susan, not quite in time.

J x

Playing Bee Catch Up

Wow this weekend really ran off with me, despite me taking an unofficial 3 day weekend (don't get excited- it wasn't for fun reasons) but I did manage to get on with my bee block... for may :( please don't be mad at me.

Each month I have been lucky enough to try something completely new to me but this month was 8 pointed stars and I have already tried an 8 pointed star here;

and for our super secret Project 51 here;

As I knew it was going to be particularly late, I wanted to put an extra special effort in so when I found the Lone Starburst block from Six White Horses Studio,

(image from Six White Horses)

I fell completely and utterly in love with it and I proceded to disregard all comments about how long it might take even an experienced paper piecer. Well it turns out they were right, this is one majorly time consuming block and as much as I love the pattern I do not think I could make a whole quilt out of it.  I mean, seriously time consuming, like an hour per 1/8th of a block! This was partly due to my inexperience and a comment from Kerry at the retreat that it was easier to be more precise by hand than by machine, honestly, looking back I probably should have graduated to machine piecing while doing this block but I enjoyed not having to lug my machine out all the time and just picking up a bit to finish off.

So without further ado, block one for Terri, aka Miss May

The colours probably wouldn't be my first choice but Terri has asked for the pink to be used as a background, I can't wait to see what she does with all of these stars; its going to be such a bright and colourful quilt!

J x

Weekend Catch Up

All weekend I intended to get my sewing machine out, or rather, turn it on (as it has been sitting out in the dining room for weeks now) but somehow I just never got around to it. The only other thing I wanted to do was take some photos of my Bee blocks for Trudi, but the weather refused to agree with me, so even though they have been done since friday they are still waiting patiently.


I have completed my 2 blocks for Trudi; the first is my favourite, from this tutorial on Liesl Made, I love the scrappyness of this block, but I had no idea how long this would take; I used EVERY spare few minutes I had (even pressing a couple geese while waiting for the dog to finish outside before I left for work) and it still took my all week to get them done, but it turns out that 32 geese is a lot of cutting and pressing.

And I got all these bonus HSTs for my efforts. I'm not sure what to do with them yet, but when inspiration hits I will be ready!

The second was a great opportunity to try out a new technique using this tutorial by Jen A-C I had so many leftovers from the first block I really wanted to try a loss-less technique and this was a dream! In comparison it went together really quickly too, I had it done for the most part in one evening :)

I also finally got around to ordering more fabric to get my Curio quilt finished, and it came, from the states, in about 5 days (including the weekend) for only £8 p&p AND I didn't have to pay customs charges! Yey for stitchsteals.com I will be shopping there again!

So I pulled it off the bed upstairs and realised how much I had done, I started off last night by piecing the already completed blocks together and with new motivation I just want to get it out of the way now!

Tonight's job is to make a start on Terri's stars, after obedience class, I haven't heard back from you with any special requirements so I am just going to crack on (and cross my fingers that you will like them!)

J x

Better late than never... I hope

I hope you agree Jo, firstly I have to say sorry that this block is soooo late (as I should have had it in the post over a month ago) but I knew I would have trouble finishing it on time as we were away at the end of april, and half of may. But I hadn't anticipated the chaos that we would come home to.

Enough with the excuses, this is April's Brit Bee block for Jo who simply asked for "circles," any circle technique, any size as long as we used some linen in the block. How open can you be?! She even trusted us with some Heather Ross Far Far Away - forgive me if I don't know whether it is series 1 or 2.

I have never understood why everyone seemed to go gaga over FFA, as up until this block I have only ever seen it online,  but it is such a lovely material to hold and play with (Jo you are sooo lucky to be getting this back as it kept trying to jump into my stash box, don't worry though I have rescued it all and sealed it in the envelope)

After coming back from the FQR last weekend, I could not resist trying out the newest technique in my arsenal for this circle block, can you guess what it is yet...

PORTHOLES!

I was so excited to try this out again and it worked even better than it did in Lucie's workshop, it also came together really quickly, but this was probably because I didn't frame any of the circles. I had to piece the backing fabric as my linen piece wasn't big enough, hope you like it Jo!

J x

ps. Terri, you are next on my list ;)

(Brit) Bee Happy

This morning, when I was already running alightly late for work I couldn't stop thinking about the bee blocks I received last month that I still haven't blogged about; February was my month in the Brit Bee and I now have most of the blocks back (although I still haven't done my own!) so I wanted to share some images of the blocks I have received and be warned that you will be impressed, these girls are seriously talented and the level of detail surpassed everything I had imagined!

1. Hadley @ Flying Blind
2. Jo @ Life In Lists
3. Judith @ Just Jude
4. Fiona @ Poppy Makes
5. Judith @ Needles and Lemons
6. Ceri @ Inspired By Felix
7. Laura @ Needles, Pins and Baking Tins
8. Susan @ Canadian Abroad


Don't they just make you smile?! I love these blocks as each one reminds me of the year we have been having :)

 I am really looking forward figuring out some random sashing to tie all the blocks together and the extra blocks to complete this top, I will keep you posted with my progress, I hope I can do it justice!

J x

Full of useful information

As you probably know, the Ellison Lane Modern Mini Challenge ended yesterday and after much deliberation the finalists are availble for us to vote on today. So head on over there to vote- but bear in mind that you WILL have your work cut out for you as there are some great contenders!

None of my favourite mug rugs made it to the voting stage, but 2 of my favourite mini quilts did and they both happen to be rainbow coloured;

From The Blue Chair's New York Beauty, the colour selection is perfect (I don't know how people manage this) and I love the accuracy in the details but I am partial to a NYB block;

and Jen Johnston's Rainbow Compass which I spotted on Flickr last week and imediately fell in love with!

Head on over to the competiton pages to check out the rest of the contenders and place your votes!

I also got an email this morning from Fat Quartley to remind me that the groups are closing today for the London Retreat sample swap and the name tag swap. I have been on these lists for months now and I am crazy excited about the quilty weekend, but I popped back on over just to double check. If you're coming along have a look at the discussion boards!

And to top it all off, I am avoiding flickr today as the lovely Susan of Canadian Abroad has told me that her Brit Bee block is done and in the post, so I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the surprise.

 I will have most of them back soon and will be showing a lovely group photo asap.

After my mini challenge weekend, I had a night off the Maple Leaf Rag last night while I took Shep to his obedience class but should be back on it tonight with pictures to share soon.

J x

WIP, ermm... Thursday

The last few weekends have been all about family and I have managed to do next to no sewing, as well as ignore my poor little blog, so back for a quick update on my lettering practice;

I have completed a further two words; "brown" in a whipped backstitch and "over" with a button hole and stem stitch (which, the way I did it, are practically the same.)

I also have two of my bee blocks back now for my month in the Brit Bee, and am still as excited as ever! Thank you to Hadley and Judith.

So I can start to think about layout, I have way too many different ideas for how this quilt will go together, I guess I really should wait to see what the other blocks are going to look like :) ... but it's too exciting to not think about.

AND I have made a tiny bit of progress on my Maple Leaf Rag, the first octagon is half finished (not much progress I know but at least it's some and I am hopefully back in full gear now!) Photos on that tomorrow because I have to go to work!

Photoshop tutorial for creating pattern pieces

I told my Bee ladies I would put up a photoshop tutorial for creating the pattern pieces I use for my Chris block and then promptly forgot all about it!

I'm not sure if anybody has access to photoshop, but it's all I know so at long last, here it is in 10 easy steps!

1. open you chosen photograph in photoshop. I tried to pick a picture that had a good contrasting background (this was harder than I expected as all my photos seem to be taken with detailed backgrounds.)

2.  Using the magnetic lasso tool (L) mark around the area you want to cut out, then double click on the layer to unlock it.

3. Once the layer has a name other than "background" you can delete the contents of the lasso and you will be left with a grey and white check where the background used to be.

Then you can clean up any remaining bits of background with the eraser (E)

4. Select "colour range" from the "select" menu.

5. From the drop down menu, select "highlights," and on a new layer, flood the selection with a pale grey.

6. Go back to "layer 0" and repeat for midtones, colouring with a mid grey on a third layer.

7. Go back to "layer 0" and repeat for shadows, colouring with black on a fourth layer.

8. Turn off the layers so that only one is showing at any one time.

9. Print each layer onto a separate sheet of a4 to create your templates, I found it easier to stack the applique from shadows (on the bottom) to highlights (on the top) and so that I didn't end up with any gaps. I printed the first sheet with all the layers turned on.

The second with midtones and highlights turned on.

The third with highlights only.

10. Then you can applique the shapes to your block using fusible fleece.

Let me know if you have any questions!

J x

Loggy Blocks

I have waited nearly a week to write this post, but as they are now quite literally in the post it must be time. This month's block in the Brit Bee was some log cabins for Judith who asked us to put a scrap of our own in the centre. I was sent a lovely collection of baby pinks with a dash of red which went perfectly with the scraps I had left over from Felicity's Nine Patch and as usual it was great to try out a new block pattern.

The first one was just me playing about with my favourite fabrics from the package she sent.

and for the second I followed Quilt Dad's tutorial for a Wonky Log Cabin as I intended to do a block with a bit more detail and was hoping to hide and 'inconsistencies' *wink*

And the best bit of completing my January blocks for Judith... Februrary is my turn!!! Woohoo!!!

J x

Missed Bee Update

Going through a year's worth of photos yesterday, I found some completed Bee blocks that had never been posted.

First off is Miss May's LynneBob Square Pants block from Lily's Quilts, thanks for easing us in gently Trudi!

And I also forgot to post June's Disappearing 9 Patch for Fiona which was a HUGE relief and something that had been on my list for a while :)

Unfortunately my pictures of the blocks are rubbish, but you get the gist, right?!

Do you remember those sunny days that we used to have? I hope we don't have to wait too much longer for them to come back!

J x

Santa Bee

An early christmas present arrived this week from a very secretive little santa-bee

My package was so prettily wrapped, I took plenty of photos (and before I start, please excuse the terrible lighting on iphone photos taken at night time!)

Anyone recognise santa's handwriting? and lookie here...

... TWO layers of gift wrap!

Thank you, thank you, thank you secret santa I love my pretty tree decorations and pouch- I showed it to Chris and he couldn't believe it was handmade!

I have my suspicions as to Santa's secret identity, but I am not revealing here, any guesses welcome in the comments section and I will let you know if I agree.

J x

ps. the bumble bee image is borrowed from craftgossip.com but the additional hat is mine :)