Eleven Stitches

April, May

I have to say that recently my creative energy has been devoted to quilting instead of knitting.  I know it goes in cycles-- I'm sure the warm weather has something to do with it-- so I'm enjoying the change instead of stressing out about it.

It's a good thing I want to quilt, because I had a lot of catching up to do!  I got behind on my One Shiny Bee blocks when I was finishing up my internship requirements.  I churned out March, April, and May blocks pretty quickly.

April  The inspiration for this month was wonky stars.  I had never made wonky stars before, and it was fun.  I used scraps to eke out a third block.  I have to do something for sending my blocks so late!

May The May inspiration was circles.  This was a challenge for me.  I had never (successfully) pieced circles before.  However, there was a link in our group discussion to a great tutorial, and it was so easy and effective.

The first block is machine applique, the second and third blocks are a mixture of piecing and hand applique.

 

   

And that brings me to June for my One Shiny Bee blocks!  I'm finishing up the second block for June now, and I'll be able to show them both to you soon.

March Blocks

March was a few months ago now, but with burning my fingers and then internship homework, I got a little behind on my One Shiny Bee blocks.  Today I was finally able to devote some time to personal quilting, and this is what I came up with.

The person who sent out fabric and inspiration this month asked for pinwheels.  I took the inspiration for the first two blocks from this series of tutorials.

I love this block, and the combination of the pink/red and green. 

Flying geese are such a fun quilting motif, and I like how they integrate into a pinwheel here.  I added in my own blue solid fabric since it matched so well with the blue fabric included in my packet.

I wanted to include a third block to make up for the fact that I'm 3 months (wince) late.  This was improvisationally pieced from my leftover pieces of fabric.

It was such a thrill to be back in my sewing room and making something for fun.  I'm looking forward to being back at sewing again this summer!

February Quilt Blocks

My Flickr friends Chawne, Jocelyn, and I started a Virtual Quilting Bee this year.  We have 13 participants, and each month we make 2 blocks for one particular person.  That person picks the fabrics, the design inspiration, and all of us make our own versions. The month that everyone makes blocks for me isn't until December, so I've got some time to decide what I want!

Jocelyn is looking for a sampler-like quilt, and she asked for one traditional block and one improvised block.  Here's what I came up with.

 

The improvised block features some hexagon trees.  The hexagons I used are tiny; they're only 3/4 inch per side! 

The traditional block is from the book, 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars.  This happens to be the Connecticut star, chosen simply because I like it.

 

I did actually run out of the blue on the last point in the star, and I thought it would be fun to pop a little pink into the block.

If you're curious what everyone else is making, you can see photos in our Flickr pool, One Shiny Bee.  I think this will be a fun project for 2010!