Siblings Together II - my block for June!

Is is really June already?!  Apparently so, and now it's my turn to be "Bee Mama" for the Siblings Together II bee that I'm a member of.  I've been pondering my choice of block for a while, and then I saw a quilt on the Moda freebie quilt patterns which gave me an idea.  (Sadly I've since closed the tab in Chrome and for the life of me I can't find it again - oops)

So, for June's block you will need:

9:  5"x5" squares in shades blue, grey, black and white

2: 2"x 14" strips in red

2: 2"x 16" strips in red

I'd prefer to avoid florals, but plains are fine.  Tonal or blender fabrics are ideal!

First job is to sew the squares into a basic nine-patch, nothing fancy.

Now comes the exciting part - for me, anyway.  I don't get out much.  Measure a line across the top row that is 2.25" above the horizontal seam and... SLICE IT.

Do the same for the bottom row.  Remember, 2.25" from the middle row.  You may notice your detached strips will be about 2.5" wide, which is not a mistake!  It will all even up once sewn.

On your cutting table you will now have something like this:

Add in your first set of red strips and trim up the edges if necessary.  Now you have this:

Time for more slicing!  Place your cuts as before - one along the right-hand row at 2.25" from the vertical seam, and the same along the left-hand row.  Again, your detached strips will be 2.5" wide.

Add in the next set of red strips, which will definitely need a little trim.  My finished blocks ended up 15.75" square, which seems a very odd number but there you have it I suppose.  Feel free to press your seams however you like - entirely your choice.

  

They are quite fun to make.  If my bee-mates could manage one I would be very pleased to receive it, and if any of them could stretch to two, that would be even better.  A 3x4 block quilt would be about 45" x 60" which is plenty big enough for the bee requirements.  And don't they look smashing put together?

Have fun, and if you've any questions, please ask!

Bee block for May

This month for my knitting group's quilting bee we're making a Box Kite block.  Yet again I was not especially impressed with the cutting instructions I found on the site we're using to choose our blocks, so I thought I'd have a bash at a quicker method.

The block is basically 2 sets of 4 HSTs and one square.  The blocks we're making are 12.5" square, so I started by cutting one 4.5" square for the middle.  So far, so good.

Then for the HSTs, I used the following method.  I cut a square of white and a square of print at 5.25" and laid them right sides together.  I drew a diagonal line across them with vanishing marker, and sewed .25" on both sides of that line.  Like this:

Then you cut along that line, and fold out your new HSTs.  They'll be a bit too big so you can trim them down to a perfect 4.5" - line up the seam against the 45° line on your quilting ruler to make sure everything's as straightened up as possible.

Two lots of those makes 4 HSTs.  Another two with a different print and you have 8 HSTs as required, so now all you need do is arrange them into rows and sew together to look like this:

Boom!  Looks nice, doesn't it?  We're 5 blocks in so far and some of them have been right buggers; it was about time we got an easy one!

Two finishes in one!

A wee while since, my lovely friend in Amurrika, Lauren, told me that she was going to be an aunty soon and she wanted to commission me to make a baby quilt.  Two baby quilts actually, since her brother and his wife were expecting twins.  

We discussed designs and such - the parents are librarians, so she wanted something that suggested books, and the babies were apparently Very Wriggly, and were referred to as Joey and Roo, so she fancied some kangaroo references too.  Thoughtfully, Lauren also considered that babies are not known for their natural cleanliness, so she asked if it could not have a white backing.  She even posted me a few fabrics to include, so I could get a better idea of a suitable colour palette.  I footled around in photoshop with some pictures from Google images and mocked up the following: 

It was deemed a go-er and so I set to.  Unfortunately, no-one had informed the Babies that I am not the fastest worker and they arrived about a month before I posted these off... they stayed in the NICU for a little while but are home now, and hopefully these quilts will arrive with them shortly.  

Here they are on my bed!

And here are some closeups: Right

...and Left.

The fabrics include some with Dr. Seuss characters and some Hungry Caterpillar fabrics, which I feel are books no baby should be without.  But not all books are storybooks!  My second-favourite part of making this quilt was finding this fabric, featuring cute animals doing SCIENCE.  And even better, several of them are in ladies' clothing:

Science Cat!

Science Dog!

Since the twins are both girls, I don't see any harm in getting the positive role-models in early.  No gender stereotyping here, thank you.

I found the loveliest backing fabric at the wonderful Simply Solids shop, one of my new favourite places in the world.  It is dribbly rainbows that rather nicely complimented the loopy free-hand quilting I wrestled with... not all my stitches are regular, I will admit, but damn it I tried and they definitely improved over the course of both quilts!

Finally, my very favourite part of making these was the applique kangaroos.  Because they mirror each other, like twins!  Two little kangaroo sisters sleeping quietly in their rainbow libraries.  HOW CUTE IS THAT.*

As ever, I am annoyed with myself for not finishing these before the babies arrived, but Lauren has been very understanding.  I hope she'll like them.  :)


 *VERY CUTE.  Do not argue with me on this.

OH LAWKS

Of course, the ridiculous thing is that while I haven't blogged for months, I have been sewing like a mad thing the entire time.

In the spirit of my "use stuff up" project, I've been doing 12.5" quilt-as-you-go blocks for the wonderful Soy Amado project:

And I made some pot-holders for a wonderful friend of mine who got married last week in the US.  I wish I could've been there but from what I've seen it was a fab day and she made a gorgeous bride.

And I've joined a real actual sewing bee!  The Siblings Together Bee (mk 2), where we make 2 x 12.5" blocks per month for a year.  These are November's rainbow coloured slab blocks, although I got a bit carried away and made 3...

I also made a commissioned toddler quilt which I didn't even take a photo of, and half a dozen baby quilts for Project Linus which will go to the Calderdale babies ICU.  I didn't take photos of those either.  I am USELESS!

Worst of all, I've realised I never posted the finished Bear Quilts.  So here they are, two disappearing nine-patch quilts in "Indie Chic" by Riley Blake fabrics and a few stash bits and Kona solids, for a pair of twin boys:

Here's a close-up of the Bear Block at the top of each quilt (based on this block at Quilter's Cache, but tweaked a bit for my purposes):

Each quilt had a little teddybear to go with it, made from a Love Patchwork & Quilting pattern.   Unfortunately the bears had to be posted off before the quilts were finished, so I didn't get a proper photo, but I managed this one while the quilt tops were still on the design wall:

There, that'll do for this post.  Now let's see how long before I post again...

First ever machine-sewn binding.

It's not perfect but I'm pretty pleased with it!  That's the back by the way - the front is better, obviously.

I'm starting to think I might actually finish these bear quilts at some point.  I have really no idea why they've been taking me so very long.  I'm not the world's fastest quilter but I'm not usually this slow!