2011 Bee Recap

I found some amazing gals to sew with in my on-line quilting bees:

{Sew Bee It}

Twice as Nice

{Modern 12}

Sew Modern Quilt Bee

Orange you Glad Bee

Aqua and Red Bee

Threadheads
4x5 Modern Quilt Bee

I sew with people all over the WORLD! 
It's downright awesome when you think of it!

But as a recap of this year I have made a few mosaics. 

I made 109 bee blocks this year!

January

These were my first blocks being angel blocks

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October


November

December

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All I can say is WOW!  I love sewing for all of you! I can not tell you how much I've learned in sewing and interpersonal skills!

Sew Happy Geek - Wall Hanging Swap received

I sent off my wall hanging to Jenna last month - remember this post? My designs usually come out a lot larger than I anticipate; Jenna wrote her new wall hanging here.

I finished the last of my late blocks this past weekend. I mailed these off yesterday morning.
As a weird coincidence I got this in the mail yesterday afternoon.  How grand is that! It's like a huge gift for finishing my commitements!

Here is my new beautiful wall hanging!
{The photo isn't perfect but it's the best I can get on winter days}

I la la love it! Here is the center - eeep!

The back you can see the quilting in detail.  I love the details this quilting adds.  And there is a lovely tag on it just for me!

And the binding.  Oh my the work that was involved in this. The handstitching the binding down is something to aspire to.

I really adore my new wall hanging.  Now is the decision of where to hang it.  My fella being so kind is letting me decide.  I can hang it in the dining room, our bedroom, or I can be super selfish and hang it in my sewing room.  Oh the decisions!

Thank you Naomi!

Go check out the other awesome wall hangings by these talented ladies over at the flickr group.

{By the way, when you live in Walla Walla, Washington for 7 years it's really hard to spell wall without adding the extra "a"}

Time during the holidays

I finally got some productive, non-sick, music blaring, sewing time in for Christmas.  And officially I'm caught up with all of my bee's.  I was super late for some reason - but that's behind me now!

On Christmas day I was able to sew sew sew.  Oh my, it was so lovely!

This is what I finished.

Twice as Nice

Our November Queen Bee asked for a square in square blocks.  She sent fabric that I don't have a lick of in my own stash.  These colors remind me of something my auntie would like.  After I got over the color pallet these were super fun.  I am not sure I want these colors in my house but I would sure love use these colors again to make something for someone else. 

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I also had fabric from our December Queen Bee.  Thankfully there was only ONE bee that was sewing during this crazy month.  She asked for scrappy triangle block based off of this tutorial over at Film in the Fridge. I loved how QUICK these were to make.  Really it was a blink of an eye and these blocks were done.

Sew Modern Bee

The November Queen Bee send some awesome fabric and a pattern she was making up on her own.  The instructions were perfect.  I was struggling with these and used my seam ripper too many times.  I then realized that I should measure what I'm trying to sew together!  Ohhh these needed to be squared up!  That helped!  Sometimes I'm so slow!  But I did get them done.

Aqua & Orange

The lovely November Queen Bee pushing me beyond my limits again.  She sent one color per person and some foundational paper. 
 

The tutorial our Queen Bee made was super easy to follow!


Aqua and Red

The November Queen Bee send along some string blocks to put together.  These were fun to make.  Oh the combinations these could be put together seems endless. 

{Sew Bee It}

The November Queen Bee gave us the freedom of any block we could think of.  This takes me so much time to think of what will be good with the fabrics sent. 

I finally decided on this spider legs block from HST (Half Square Triangles). 

This second block was just from the leftovers.  I have to say that both of these looked great together!  I always love Lindsey's fabric choices!

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It feels grand to be caught up!  Love it!  I'm looking forward to finishing up my bee's in 2012.

Kids make everything look cute!

I have a super talented girlfriend from grade school. We were the best of friends around middle school. Then life seemed to hit and took us on different paths. Thankfully facebook reconnected us a few years back.  

Kristin designed my header and my siggy block {that I remember to use only around 70% of the time}.  

Kristin is not only a fabulous designer but she also has an amazing family.  

She asked me to make a pillowcase dress for her only girl. Of course I said YES.  Then it took awhile looking at different patterns and ended up making up my own pattern. 

Making something for others kinda puts the pressure on. I think I did an okay job. . but this kid makes this dress look amazing!

 

 She's not even mine but I think she's the cutest thing EVA! Okay, okay, I think that of all my friends kids are amazing. Like my Lou's little girl in her Ice Cream Dress.

This dress can be used years while she grows.  Oh Look at this grin. I'm so happy!

Thanks for letting me sew for you my dearest and letting me use your amazing photos!

Go check Kristin out over at Modjeska Designs or email Kristin(at)ModjeskaDesigns (dot)com

Quilting for Kids v.2

It's better to give.

I'm so happy to have participated in (the first round) of Quilting for Kids with Sarah over at So Sarah Sews. She blogged about it here.  And over on the flickr group there is another round - Sarah blogs about the block here.  (There's still room if you're interested.)

Here are the four blocks I'm sending to Sarah for the next quilt being made by Quilting for Kids. This quilt is being made for the brother of the two girls for whom we made the first quilts. 

Making a change in kids' lives feels amazing.  

I know that I adore the quilt my Grandmama made me when I was young.  That lap quilt is in tatters and isn't allowed to be touched much, but the love still exudes from it!

Ohhh that's why

Huh I've been whining exponentially over the past week.  Now I know why.  I'm sick.  Ohhhhhhh - that totally makes sense! My fella is totally taking care of me and letting me sleep away the day.  And I'm hoping I'm over this quick.

But can you believe I worked on a bee block and joyfully! I realized that I'm not terribly behind because I was queen bee in two bee's last month.  I'll post photos of my lovely collection of blocks I'm getting back after I get a few more from my bee-mates.

For one (of two) Queen Bee's in the Aqua & Red bee she wanted Christmas stars.  There was a lovely pattern included.  There was also a massive amount of fabrics.  We had the options to have any fabric on any star.  And there was enough fabric to fussy cut some awesome fabrics.

I am not a fan of Christmas fabric. I'm not sure why! This block may change my mind!

This is SO cute! 

Heather Ross fabric. {Swoon} And on the right is a snowman peeking out - so unintentional. 

And look at the little star - bloody adorable!

And I hope after this weekend, I'll be better as I have to travel to Bend this next week. Booo! Hiss! Do you realize how bleeping cold it is down there!

Just keep swimming

I'm trying to just keep swimming along. 

Lately I've been overwhelmed. 

• I might have a bit much on my plate with the bee's I'm in.  I'm so thankful for the community these ladies provide!  I'm not going to be signing myself up for new bee's on these hives run their course.  I'm already freaking out how to stay part of this community. I've come to need these ladies around! 
• I might have a tween in the house.  Right now she's "his tween" and wow it's been an interesting time trying to balance life and whatever she's throwing out at us. 
• I might not even have Christmas planned for my fella.  We have "his tween" taken care of - oh SNAP!
• I might be lacking in joy for my job.
• I might not be happy about the travel my job sends me on. 
• I might have medical crapola going on. 

Well I haven't been able to find joy in sewing lately with all of the above mentioned mights going on in my life right now.  I did find a small spark this past Monday to get a few of my lacking bee blocks kicked out the door!  Yeah for a few hours of free time!  I have October blocks done! 

Twice as Nice

Our October queen bee had the group make her letters.  What a fun way to get different blocks!  I was really stuck on how to make these fun!  This is what I came up with.

The "N" isn't exactly what I had in mind.  But it's cute!  The Z is almost exactly what I wanted.  The rest of these are pretty rocking too!

{Sew Bee It}

Can you believe that I'm the Bee Mama for this group and I was late.  What a bad example I am!  Maybe I should be sent to my sewing room!  :)

Our Queen Bee wanted wonky frames.  She gave us just the right amount of fabric from the Cherry Fizz collection by Quilt Soup/Henry Glass& Co. She ordered wonky And this is what I came up with.  Oh I think I can wonk it up now!  I'm so proud of myself!

Aqua & Orange 

Improve blocks with solids.  Oh gads this was fun!  The orange block here was a bit difficult.  

This blue block just sings to ME!  I adore blue! I believe this block is perfect.

This solid challenge isn't too hard for me.  I'm in love with solids.  I am trying to learn to pair more patterns together.  I'm slowly getting there.

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Now to tackle all of the blocks due last month {insert tween eye roll here}  I'm thankful no one has openly been mean about me being SO late.  I want to have joy when I sew.  Something rushed or not fun is not good for me or the fabrics!  I usually totally mess things up when I push too hard!

But rest assured I found the "Yoga" station on Pandora the other day.  I've been doing a few yoga stretches. I get some quality time with my fella.

Sew Happy Geek - Wall Hanging Swap sent

I am shocked how quick time flies as an adult.  And it picks up speed each and every year. 

Le'sigh!

I signed up for the Sew Happy Geek's Wall Hanging Swap, way back, at the end of September.   

I'm happy to report that I meet the required mailing deadline {November 14}.  I so almost didn't because of my day job.

I was lucky enough to sew for Jenna of Sew Happy Geek! But because of that . . . the pressure was ON!  Jenna is super sweet, uber talented, responsive to comments on her blog, but she also tweets. Where does this woman find the time?

I wanted to keep my ideas simple.  No need to break new ground when the deadline was quickly approaching.  I somehow turned these fabrics . . .

Into this. . .

I {heart} Dresden Plates!

I did add some hand-stitching!  You know something I've never done until this project.  

I added a spash of different fabric into binding ohhhh!  I felt like it was such a contrast but you have to look really hard to find it!  :)

To hang this I added these super triangles that I wouldn't have thought of on my own as a wall hanger {tute found here}. I added these to all four corners  for dearest Jenna to a) decide which way to hang this and to b) be able to change things up.  I think it feels like a different wall hanging depending on which direction you hang it.  Yeah that might be just me - sigh.

I am a little anxious to receive my wall hanging - just ask my fella!     But once I do - I'll let ya'll know!