Improv wonky house bee blocks

This month was the second in our new Modern Irish Bee, and last week a little bundle of colourful, fun fabric arrived from Agnes. She asked us to make wonky house blocks in any style, any size and using whatever method we wanted.

I decided to make some improv blocks. First up was this summery feeling little house.  The swirly fabric I used for the house made me think of a gingerbread house for some reason, and I pulled out some scraps from my basket to add the little tree and the girl in the window. I still have a bear cut out to applique but didn't really feel it was working in the block so never applied it. I love the wonky, crooked little house and there is room for Agnes to add little details on the doors and windows when she is quilting, if she wants to.

Then I turned to the second block. There was a big strip of deep navy fabric in the pack, so I knew my 2nd block was going to be a nighttime block. This one is pretty simple, but I like the owl and hedgehogs, and the yellow windowpanes - it's a little cozy house in the moonlight :-)

I had lots of fun making these and I hope Agnes likes them! There are a host of lovely wonky houses popping up in the group pool, and I think she is going to have a fab quilt! 

I was also queen bee for July....and I have almost all the blocks back, just waiting for some where people are away on holidays. I can't wait to show you the gorgeousness that has been dropping in through my letter box in the last few weeks!

November Bee Blocks

November was all about wonky star blocks in Sew Bee Blissful. I was so thrilled, I love making wonky stars!

Ella was our queen bee for the month and sent out packs of gorgeous fabric, using a deep wine coloured solid as the background which was perfect. She also posted a fab inspiration mosaic and asked us to "play" with the blocks, leaving our interpretations up to us.

So I took the fabrics out earlier this week and had a good think about what I wanted to do. I decided to do the first one pretty straightforward. I made a little four patch block for the centre square, just to add a bit more interest. And I went as wonky as I could with my points and am really happy with how it turned out.

 

The second block, I decided to swap out some of the background fabric for a print with similar tones (with Ella's blessing). Because I was doing this I decided to stick to the solid orange and yellow for the wonky star points. The centre square is a little square with borders. Its a little in your face, and I had mixed feelings about it when I was making it, but I quite love it now and I think it will work really nicely in the quilt. I just hope Ella does too.

Lastly she asked us to make a small improv block - here it is:

Overall, I really loved this month's blocks! We're on a break for December and I need to get thinking about what I am doing as my month (February) will be coming up fast!

For the Love of Solids Swap Mini Quilt

Well, now that my package has (at last) arrived all the way over in Canda, I can finally reveal my swap items for the For the Love of Solids swap! Felicity was a really great partner to have - so active in the Flickr group and lots of hints about what she liked. But as someone whose blog I have admired for quite a long time now, I was pretty anxious that she would like what I made!

Felicity's swap info told me that she loved improv piecing and letters, as well as grey fabric. I checked out her blog and saw she had made a fabulous quilt from free pieced letters. It was so cool, I just had to give it a try and decided to go for something very modern using letters as a starting point. This was a pretty big departure for me. I've never done improv piecing, never done letters and never used a grey backing. I did a fair bit of scouring the blogosphere looking for instructions and inspiration, but didn't find a huge amount of instructions, it being improvisational (doh!). I did find one site which showed me how to make a letter A (can't remember it now!) - not much use to me for the word I wanted but it gave me a starting point and I had a surprising amount of fun making these letters. I love how wonky and irregular they look.

Then I started thinking about the rest of my quilt and how to pull it together. I found this quilt by The Girl Who Quilts  which gave me some inspiration re: improv blocks and how to utilise them. (It also gave me the inspiration for the quilting.) I decided that rather than trying to improv piece the whole quilt top (the thought of which had me petrified!) I would do improv blocks and piece them into the quilt top.

So I made up these little blocks, having a lot of fun doing them I might add!

I really wanted the blocks to be irregular in size and shape, and used some of the crazy piecing techniques I've learned lately to set them into the Kona Charcoal background fabric.  Then I began the process of laying out my top with these 3 blocks, but I just wasn't happy with how it was working. An hour or so of panic later and I realised I needed a teeny tiny 4th block. Once I did that, Iit all came together for me, and I fell in love with it. I moved onto thinking about the back then. I didn't want to go for a totally plain back, and some regular strips would not have fit with the front. So, I did a central block made of randomly cut strips, just for fun! I set this into a vibrant bright teal-ish blue colour (the name of which I can't remember!) backing and I think it works nicely against the front.

After doing a small bit of FMQ on it, which really didn't work, I decided to go back to my inspiration and quilt it in random, angular straight lines to reflect the angular nature of the piecing. It really worked, I was thrilled. Then I noticed that Felicity had used that same quilting technique on her FTLOS small swap item and that made me smile :-) I bound it in the same Kona Charcoal fabric that I used for the background.

Last but not least, I got a rare sunny hour for some photos! Here it is in all its glory! I was afraid to publish any pictures of the whole quilt top, because I thought that the letters might give the game away to Felicity! So its nice to finally be able to show the whole thing off, having only shown partial views in the Flickr group so far.

I then parcelled it up with the Circles Mug rug and sent off to Felicity.

 

The very best thing about swaps though is that you get something in return! And this is the package that arrived all the way from Australia for me last week. Kirsten is someone I have chatted to on email and I loved the look of her progress pics in the Flickr group. So when I saw her name on the return address on the envelope I did a little dance of anticipation in my kitchen before I opened it. And look what I got!! Amazing :-)

I asked for a sewing machine cover or a  mini quilt for my big item...and I got both! Kirsten was amazingly generous. My sewing machine sits on my kitchen table as a permanent fixture, in against the wall. And it has a big ugly white hard cover. But no longer - its now got this lovely double sided cover - with a rainbow on one side and gorgeous straight line quilting and colourful squares on the other.

Then there's the warm/cool HST mini quilt - I'm STILL debating where to put this one, its so pretty.

Lastly, there's a matching little fabric basket which was immediately put into use to keep my essentials beside the sewing machine. How lucky am I?? You should definitely go check out Kirsten's lovely blog - she has great projects! Thanks so much Kirsten, I'm still in love with my swap items!

I have said it before, but need to say it again. This was a GREAT swap. The challenge of working with solids only was really interesting and certainly made me push outside my comfort zone. So thanks Felicity for providing such great inspiration :-) I'm so glad she likes it! And thanks Kirsten for sending me such gorgeous goodies! I'm definitely keeping a close eye out for round 2!! I'm linking up to the mini quilt linky over at Fresh Lemons.

Blocks, blocks, blocks!

Sunday is a dream day for sewing in this house. After a day off on Saturday and (ususally) a good nights sleep, the extra energy coupled with daylight always give me a boost. So this morning I tackled my Sew Bee Blissful blocks which I have been avoiding for the last couple of weeks for fear of ruining them.

Jenna wanted a double pinwheel block, and, to be honest, it was very straightforward once I figured out what fabrics I was going to use where. She sent me these bright and colourful fabrics and I added a little white as well.

This is the first time I've used starch, strangely enough and I think I overstarched the fabrics for the first block. It very possibly could stand up all by itself (sorry Jenna!). But I think it turned out ok, here it is:

The second one is my favourite:


Jenna asked us to make 6" blocks for a strip on the back of the quilt with any leftovers. I had quite a few scraps left as I used some white, so I made up 2 blocks for her. One a simple pinwheel to echo the front, the other a crazy pieced block. I hope she likes them, I really love how they turned out.


I also got started on my solids project for the swap. My partner has really responded to some improv blocks in the photo pool so I thought I'd try this for her. I've never done it before, but I quite enjoyed it. The unstructured nature of it appeals to me! (Surprise, surprise!) So I did this block plus some other bits - but I can't show them because they would totally give the game away as to who my partner is! I'm using Kona Coal as the background fabric on this mini quilt. Can't wait to get to the next blocks now. What do you think of this? Does it work, or not... bearing in mind that its supposed to be random and improvised? Let me know. (yes, I know its not a regular shape.....that's part of its, eh, charm!)


On another note, are you exited about the Across the Sea QAL?? I know I am. The Flickr group has jumped into activity with over 60 members so if you're still on the fence, come join us! Fabric cutting instructions will be posted tomorrow so check back then :-)

I'm linking up to: