Modern Instabee 2014 (February)

A great advantage to following quilters on Instagram, is that you are made aware of online sewing bees :)

I joined this one called Modern Instabee.

I belong to Hive 11. 

You have to buy this book to participate, but I love the book so that wasn't a problem.

You can watch a short video about the book here.

If you want to see the blocks all the hives are creating for the bee, go to Instagram and look for #moderninstabee2014 and #moderninstabeehive11.
If you are interested in joining, follow Lindsaysews (Lindsay Conner), she is the author of the book and the queen bee :)

Each of the quilters involved in the bee chooses a month,

mine's October :)

You then choose the block you would like the other quilters in your hive to make for you.

You tell them what colors, or send them fabric to make it if you are very particular.

February's block was the Stacked Windmills block, for Sarah.

You can display a photo of the fabrics you are going to use in the block and have them approved first, if you want to.

It's not necessary though.

Look at this different method of making half square triangles.

Sew around two pieces of fabric, using a l/4" S/A.

Then you cut 2 lines diagonally with your rotary cutter.

Then you simply press the half square triangles open.

It's amazing all the techniques there are in quilting!

We're not quite finished.....each square needs to be squared up.

Look at all the trimmings!

Make sure all of your half square triangles are all in the right order.

Sarah requested bright spring colors such as orange, blue, green, yellow, red and a hint of pink.

We could only choose 4 prints for this block, with a white background.

Here is the completed block, I think it looks really pretty!
The stacked windmill blocks look really different when they are placed side by side in a quilt.
I'm thinking about choosing this block for my month :)

Spell it with Fabric

A couple of weeks ago, Moda hosted a blog hop called "Spell it with Fabric".

I pinned every single alphabet and number and punctuation mark, and you can find it on my Pinterest board here.

It was so much fun to choose the fabrics!!!

I chose red for "A" because it reminds me of apple.

"B" is for blue.

"C" is for my cute little grand daughter Charlotte, and me, Cynthia.

This fabric is Mary Engelbreit, which makes me think of cherries.

I just like the blue and gold together ;)

I love this olive green with the paisley orange.

"F" is for flower.

I thought there would me more of a contrast if I used a solid color letter and flowered background.

I pinned some completed quilts to my board also.

This is as far as I got, I spent 2 evenings sewing these letters, it was my "fun" project.

Now I have things I have to get done, like my son's tee shirt quilt!

Quilty Fun Sew Along, Week 16

This week, I sewed 6 spool blocks.  

These are the quilty colors I chose.

Here are my spools, laying across my red chair.

I used the same Kona charcoal for the spools, that I used for the butterfly bodies.

After I sewed my spools, I cut out sashing and sewed the right section of my quilt together.

The 2 posie blocks will be sewn on the bottom, below the four honeycombs.

I need to start thinking what colors I want my borders to be :)

Honeycomb Table Topper with tutorial link

I bought Lori Holt's Hexie Half Ruler.

 The rulers made this honeycomb table topper much easier!

I zigzagged the inner hexes to the larger ones with invisible thread.  

I don't know if that would work very well on a quilt that will have lots of washings, but I think it's okay for this table topper.

I bound it with a solid color, scrappy binding.

I used my walking foot to machine quilt, and I was really happy with the results.  

It would have taken me forever to do this on my old machine.

I just love my Bernina 750 QE, I feel very spoiled :)

I used Kona charcoal for the side borders.

I can reverse the table topper and use it for Christmas or Valentine's  or even Canada Day, with the bright red backing :)

If you would like a tutorial about how to make a quilt using this method, Lori has one here.

I would love to make a full size quilt like hers one of these days.

"Home Sweet Home" quilt block

I bought this magazine at JoAnn Fabrics, it has 100 really cute blocks.

The cutest of them all, is Lori Holt's "Home Sweet Home" block.

You can read about it on her blog, here.

This is the first little house I made.

The block finishes at 12", and I added a 2 l/2" border.

It finished at 16" square.

I made a mistake though.......the outside windows aren't centered.

I decided to leave it though, just because somehow, it didn't bother me.

I love the red and aqua combination.

I used my walking foot for the outline quilting, and the Bernina stitch regulator for the pebble quilting.  

I love a scrappy binding.

This is the back, red and white to match the red house :)

This is my second "Home Sweet Home" block.

I love the color combinations, with the swiss dot background.

I think the red and white gingham binding makes the house pop!

This is the very colorful back!

Both of these blocks can be used on a table, can be used in home decor, or as a piece of art on the wall.

I made both of them as a gift for some families in Brazil.

"There is beauty all around, when there's love at home."

Quilty Fun Sew Along, Week 15

This is the week for butterflies, one of my favorite blocks.

I have a board devoted to butterfly quilts on Pinterest, I love them so much!

You can see it here.

I placed my blocks in order on the floor, because I wanted to see what colors would look best for the butterflies.

The butterflies will go to the right of the houses.

The house on the right is pink with touches of red, including Little Red Riding Hood in the doorway.

I decided the first butterfly should be red, and since I like red so much, the third butterfly should be red also.

What goes perfectly with red?  Aqua!

I was in a hurry and made a mistake.

The middle butterfly should be going sideways for a scrappy look.

Do you think I should change it or leave it?

Leave me a comment and give me your opinion.

Dresden block

I wanted to make a pretty dresden table topper, a quilted, happy piece to brighten up a room.

I chose bright, sunshiny, scrappy pieces of fabric.

I sewed the dresden onto a white block.  I attached it with a small zig zag stitch, using invisible thread.

I have a lot of 1 l/2" squares, so I used them for a colorful border.

With my new sewing machine (Bernina 750 QE) that I got for Christmas, I quilted my dresden block and sewed on a scrappy border.

I can't tell you how much easier it is to machine quilt with!

I think the back of the block looks almost as pretty as the front :)

I used the free block template with video instructions from Riley Blake's mystery block of the month.  

The dresden was the month of August.

This link will take you to the video (August), along with a link to the pdf file for the pattern. 

The dresden looks so difficult, but really it isn't.