"Can you believe it's already August?"

I almost cried when I re-read Zonnah's card and realized that it's almost November.  Yikes!  I was terrified to do these curves since I've never done them before so I wouldn't let myself finish any other bee blocks until I completed this one.  I used a pattern from Purl Bee for Curved Seam Pillows , and shrunk the pdf by half.  It worked out pretty well and the instructions on the site were a great intro to curved seams.  My picture definitely suffered from being in the bright sun - the shadows are making those puckers look worse than they actually are (although there's no denying that they exist).  Learning some new skills, such as curved seams, was why I joined some quilting bees, so thanks, Zonnah, for the challenge - and enjoy!   ~Gretchen

Shot cotton love

Have you seen those gorgeous shot cottons from Kaffe Fassett? I thought I had, but let me tell you-- a computer screen does not do the fabric justice. I had not been so up close and personal with the fabric until Nichole sent some Thunder to use in her block this month. I had heard people describe it as iridescent looking, but didn't really understand until now. It really is. WOW! LOVE I'm telling you!

Nichole requested a big block (16.5") with 1 to 3 individual flowers surrounded by the fabulous shot cotton background. She said she loves bright, bold colors, so that's what I tried to do:


It was a fun block to make. I started by cutting out my flowers and then measured them to see how big they were. Then I used graph paper to help me figure out the sizes background pieces.

I have a feeling that Nichole's blocks are going to create a spectacular quilt!

Thunder is one of the best color names

First, the purple shot cotton Nichole sent us for October is delicious.

I didn't think I had a lot of flowers in my stash, but I was able to find several. These three looked best in the Thunder field.

Amazingly, the block when smoothly and that scares me. I checked and double checked the instructions so I think I am good on that end. It was fun to arrange and rearrange the flower placement. I decided on this so that the flowers were further from the center, but still kind of balanced. By the way, the littlest flower on the bottom right isn't that close to the edge. Some of the side got cropped out of the picture.

I am really interested in seeing the finished quilt. The block should be in the mail tomorrow! =]

October

This months snip.sew.send from Nichole was a bit of a challenge for me because I don't have a stash. I do have leftovers from all the quilts I have made but none of those had flowers in them. I did have the floral print from my month but it did not go with the purple. So I did some begging and got these flowers :) My favorite is the yellow one. This picture really does not do it justice but it looks really good with the purple. I had a lot of fun fussy cutting and doing the math to make the block.

Liberty Gardens for Nichole

I also made two blocks for Nichole. For the flowers I dug into my stash of Liberty fabric. The shot cotton was so nice to work with and the blocks were very simple to assemble. I hope she likes them! I know the pictures aren't great, but I'll post some close-ups of the flowers on my blog. One of them isn't even a flower, it's a dragonfly . . . but I still think it's pretty.

I also posted a picture of all of my September blocks together. I'm still waiting on a couple more and once they all come in I'll post a picture of all the blocks and post it here. I think they look really great together. Thanks again, Ladies!

With apologies for lateness...

Yesterday, I finally completed September's Snip.Sew.Send. block. Sufficit to say, I'm late. I have already sent some profuse apologies to the ever-gracious Lisa, and I should have her block in the mail to her on the morrow. Yay!

Lisa sent a variety of fabrics: red, blue, and green batiks, red and white prints, and some solid white. She loves scrappy quilts, and her fabrics really reflected an eclectic and fun style. Her block requirements: include each of the different fabrics in the 10.5" block, and include at least one star.

Sounds simple, right? Sigh... not for me. I felt overwhelmed by the array of fabrics and I just couldn't envision anything that seemed "right." But then one day, I ran across a post in Kathy Mack's Pink Chalk Studio blog that inspired me. She had recently made a wonky, free-form star block called "Maverick Star" AND she included some links to tutorials on how to do it. Perfect!

I used the Quiltville tutorial for "Maverick Stars!!!" and followed it pretty much to the letter, except that I used 2" squares instead of 2.5" (because I wanted smaller stars). It worked great. But then I kind of got stuck. I didn't have enough of the blue or green fabrics to make more stars, nor did I have enough of them to fill-in the surrounding areas (though that is what I had hoped to do). But I did have lots of red. So, I put red four-patches in the corners.


I think the result is kind of festive-looking in a crazy, scrappy kind of way. And I like the vibrancy of the red four-patches. I also like that I was able to push myself out of my comfort zone to make this. It is maybe not aesthetically perfect (at least, not to my mind), but I think it has a certain charm to it. Hopefully, Lisa will think so too.

Flowers for Nichole's Garden

I had a lot of fun with the gorgeous fabric Nichole sent. When I read the instructions, I really didn't think I had many flowers in my stash, but when I looked, I found a whole bunch. I picked a few that I thought coordinated best and I hope it works for your vision, Nichole! I made two blocks and used just about all of the fabric you sent. :)