Hive 2 November Fractured Blocks

I would love to make another cut, but the blocks are shrinking. Loved the process. In the mail this week.  Joan

November Hive 2 for Jennifer

These were quick and fun.

Wanted to do another cut, but just at 8inches so decided against it.

Posted today so off on there journey over the ocean...

A November Hive 2 for Jennifer

This looks like a modern painting.  It will make an interesting quilt.  Have fun Jennifer.  I'll mail it out this week.
Kathie L

Finished blocks for Jennifer, November, 2019, Hive 2

Well, Jen, I am not sure any of these work for you, but here they are! I think I turned my pieces wrong on the first set (the straight-line blocks) because they are two different sizes.
The rest of the story is that while I was making set one, I thought, what fun it would be to try curves with this. So, when the first set seemed off, I made a second set with curves! Hope you can use some of them!!!

Valorie

2020 StashBee Sign Up is now Live

Hello StashBee!

2019 is almost over and we are in the last month of StashBee. It has been great following along on the blog, facebook and instagram and seeing all your completed blocks. There have even been a few completed quilts! Great job everyone!

If you are interested in joining StashBee again next year, please fill out the registration form through the following link:

https://forms.gle/t6RTm9QKe3HNT4HR8


Please sign up by Sunday Nov 17th. 
Feel free to share a link to this post with any of your quilty friends you think might be interested!

My goal is to have the Hives assigned in early December (before I go into labour!.....oh did I mention I was pregnant?!)

Looking forward to another great year!

Happy sewing!

Hive 2 fractured blocks for Jenn

I struggle with improv but these were easy and fun.  They are barely 8" as I think I fractured them too much and ate up lots of inches with the seam allowances.  I hope you can still use them Jenn.  In the mail on Monday.  I had a great time this year in stash bee and tried lots of new things.  Thanks to all the bees in hive 2 for your ideas and enthusiasm.  Again next year?     Paulette

Hive 2 November blocks done

I have some travel plans for this month. . . so when I was up late last night I checked and there was the tutorial for the November block!  LOL

 

So here are my blocks ready to mail.  They do not show up too well against the blue chair but they were fun.

 

I really tried to not make an "X" but my cutting clearly was not wonky enough to get a different look.

 

I have so enjoyed working with the blocks from our Hive this year. . . .and look forward to seeing the quilts as they get finished.

 

Happy quilting,

 

Sherry V.

Hive 2 November Tutorial: Fractured Blocks

Happy November Hive 2!

I am hoping this will be a fun, easy to make block for everyone.  No points to match, no trimming to do, just choose a dark solid or soldish fabric, pair it with a loud busy print, and start cutting!  We will be doing a two-at-a-time construction; please do not sew your two parts together, I want to mix everyone's up!

My sample blocks ended up a bit bigger than intended, but I have adjusted the fabric requirements so each of your finished sections should be around 8 inches on a side.  A bit bigger or smaller is fine, it doesn't need to end up square, and no need to trim before sending.

Fabric:
1 - 9 inch square of your darkest solid or solid-like fabric.  Black if you have it, but any dark fabric will work.
1 - 9 inch square of a loud, busy print.  Go wild.  Really, anything goes.


Steps:

1 - place your print fabric right side up on top of your solid fabric

2 - Make a cut anywhere (ignore that I turned the fabric wrong-side down.  I made a mistake, but forgot to take a picture of it the right way!).

3 - Take the smaller piece of the print fabric and swap it with the smaller piece of solid fabric.  Sew the seam on each piece so you have two new squares:

4 - Place these two on top of each other, and make another cut, and swap the pieces again:

5 - Sew the seam:

Repeat until you like how it looks; please do at least four cuts. (Repeat is just stack, cut, swap, sew.)  The points are very unlikely to match up, especially after the third cut.  Don't worry about it.  Press the seams whichever way you prefer; they tend to get a bit messy after the third cut.  Again, don't worry about it.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and I am looking forward to what you come up with!

-Jennifer

Hive 4 November Tutorial Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Hi, I'm Velda at the Freckled Fox Quiltery and this is my Queen Bee post for 2019 in Hive 4.

Let me just say before I go any further, OMG where did this year go? How could it possibly be November already?   Was there a twist or warp, or perhaps even a bend in the Space/TIme continuum? ....sigh....yes, I watched every single episode of "Voyager", Deep Space 9 and Star Trek--New Generation.  But thats a story for another day.

2019 has been the year of "Text" for me. I've been involved in planning and piecing three quilts for entry into the QuiltCon 2019 Charity Quilt Challenge. The theme is of course "text" and OMGoodness the options are infinite.  Without giving away too many details, the PEIMQG(of which I'm a member) is piecing a beautiful quilt  inspired by Sam Canon Art.  I'm so excited to see it come together and promise I will share it with all of you when the time comes.  My Bee Inspired Friends recently finished piecing our "You Got This"  entry and in September, I committed to working with another individual member team (Peace Around the World) to make another texty quilt which is loosely based on a design of mine.

All of this is simply preface to me asking you to help me finish another texty quilt that has been prancing and pirouetting around in my head and on my IG feed since early this summer.  I call it  "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and here is where its at right now.

Cute and Quirky, just like you, right?  Cindy Lauper must be pleased to see that her 1983 Anthem still inspires and encourages girls to have fun.

So this is where you come in....I need at least a dozen more girls to make an appearance on my quilt top.... sew I want you to make one.  And I don't just want you to make any generic girl, Nope of course not.  I want you make one that represents you.”

So how do you do that?  Click here to pop straight to the recipe that I found on Stash Bee Hive 1 in February of  2013 (thank you Stash Bee Administrators for keeping all the old posts on the blog archive).  The block is called Pippi Longstocking and I think its fabulous.  It was created by Jude of Just Jude and she is an awesome blogger who I love to visit every once in a while.

So after you go and read Jude's tutorial, I'd like you to consider how you can make Pippi a bit more like you.... Are you taller than average? perhaps you can make the legs a bit longer and the  dress a bit shorter....or possibly you are vertically challenged, Pippi says that's okay too.  Has it been 20+ years since you wore a mini skirt? Make her dress a bit longer, or give her trousers...Is your hair white/brown/purple ...hers can be that colour too.  Do you love to dance?  Give her a little shimmy/shake with a different leg position. LOL.  Or perhaps you want to make Pippi your alter ego. Tall, if you are short, Blonde if you have darker hair,  etc. etc. etc.  Thats the beauty of an Improv block, you can easily modify it by making the pieces a bit bigger or a bit smaller.  So very cool!  Just to give you an idea, here is my version of me.

Me - Velda 

For the purposes of my quilt, I only want you to make the Pippi portion of the block.  DO NOT add the checkerboard portion of the tutorial around Pippi.  This means that the block you will be sending me measures approximately 8.5" x 8.5" unfinished. A little more or less is no big deal.  This is improv after all!

The only other thing I'd like you to consider is the background fabric.  I've used mostly very light prints or white tone on tone fabrics.  Please take a look at the girls (or the word backgrounds) on my examples for ideas of modern low-volume fabrics that will play nice with the girls I already made. If your stash is low on modern LV backgrounds, then any white on white is fine.  If possible stay away from white solids tho.  I'm fine with any modern BG print fabrics as long as it has a white rather than cream base.  Here are some close ups of the other girls I've made.

Kate

Elsie and Abi

Janey

Jean and Annie

I cannot wait to see all you guys cavorting in a conga line on my quilt top! If you want to see a few more examples of how cute these Pippi's can be, click right here to see the Hive 1 February, 2013 post from Tanya. Then let your imagination go wild.  See you on the dance floor.

And, I betcha you have the song "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" playing over and over in your head all day today.   Sorry--not sorry!

Hive 1 November 2019 Tutorial – Brights on Darks

Hello Hive 1!  I’m Pam, the last Queen Bee this year, and I wanted to make my block big but easy. One of the things I’ve enjoyed about being in Stashbee is writing the tutorials.  My personal sewing style is more trial and error and improv-in-the-moment, so having to plan in advance, work slowly, and photograph and explain each step is challenging and fun.

My Brights on Darks block was inspired by wonky diamonds quilts I’ve seen online, but I didn’t want mine too diamond-y or too wonky.  In my experience, wonky is harder to explain and sometimes more time-consuming than working with measurements, so mine is wonky-ISH.

COLORS:  The background fabric should be a dark fabric in any color, either solid or print.  The bright fabric can be any bright solid or print that contrasts nicely with the background.

FABRIC REQUIREMENTS:  Each block requires a fat quarter of a dark background fabric and four 2.5” x 12” strips of a bright fabric.  The strips need to be at least 12” long but if they’re a bit longer that’s okay.

CUTTING:

Here’s how I cut the background to minimize waste.  Fold the dark fat quarter lengthwise, press a crease down the center, then unfold and cut along the fold.  This should give you two pieces approximately 9” x 22”. 

Stack the pieces on top of each other and subcut two 9” segments to give you two stacks of two pieces 9” x approximately 9” each.  No need to square them up to exactly 9”.

Place the two stacks of background pieces next to each other on your mat.  On the left-hand stack, measure two inches in from the upper right corner and make a mark with chalk or pencil, then measure five inches in from the lower right corner and make a mark.  On the right-hand stack, make the marks measuring in from the left side of the fabric.  Place the edge of your ruler along the marks and cut.  Marking and cutting this way ensures you’ll have two each of the mirror-image pieces.

SEWING:

1.   Place a bright strip along the diagonal edge of one of the smaller background pieces, right sides together, making sure the strip overhangs the background generously on both ends.  Using a ¼” seam, sew the strip to the background with the strip up so that the bias edge of the background doesn’t stretch.  Repeat with each of the strips and smaller background pieces, chain-piecing to save time. 

Press the seams towards the strips.  This helps the bright fabrics pop just a bit more against the dark background.

2.  Lay the remaining background piece next to the background/strip piece so that the edges of the background pieces are in line, then hinge the background piece over so that the pieces are right sides together.  You can pin or just hold the edges together as you sew.  Sew with the strip side up to prevent the bias edge stretching.  Repeat with all for remaining background pieces.

Press the seams towards the strips. 

                3.  Use a ruler to trim both seamed edges of the units so that these edges are parallel.  A wide ruler works great, or you can use the markings on your mat.  Don’t worry about how wide or long the units are, just make sure the edges of the units are parallel.  Repeat with all four units.  The four units probably won’t be the same size, but that doesn’t matter at this point.

                4.   Take two mirror image units and line them up so the strips are in line, and then place right sides together, using pins to keep these seams together as you sew--the seams will not “nest,” but that’s okay.    The edges of the backgrounds on both pieces probably won’t line up, but don’t stretch or ease the edges to match—we’ll be trimming those sides down later.   Sew matching the seams on the strip.  Repeat with the other pair of units.

Press these seams open to reduce bulk.

                5.   To straighten the long edges of the two pieces before seaming them together, it helps to use a wide ruler so you can place a line of the ruler along the seam you just sewed and the edge of the ruler along the inside long edge you’re preparing to sew.  Cut off as little as possible off this edge to straighten it.   Then place the two straightened edges right sides together, pinning at the seam.  Again, don’t worry about the ends of the background pieces not lining up.  Sew matching the center seam.

Press this seam open to reduce bulk.

                6.   At this point the sewing is finished and all that is left is to trim the block down to 16 ½” (unfinished).  Feel free to skip the trimming down, and I’ll do that myself.  If you want to trim, here’s how I did it.  Before I pressed the final seam open, I placed the sewn block with right sides together on my mat and used a wide ruler to measure 8 ½” from the edge of the seam allowance and cut off the excess.  I then pressed the final seam open and measured 8 ½” from the edge of the seam allowance out to the side of the block and trimmed off the excess.

I’m looking forward to seeing what my Hivemates come up with this year.  Happy sewing!

Pam