Stash Bee Hive 2, October

Oh, Kaja, who blogs at Sewslowly has a brilliant block this month for her month as Queen Bee. I LOVE improvisational blocks so this was right up my street.  Kaja's request was very simple, squares or triangles based on a rough guide selection of colours inspired by a photo. Or possible represented in a photo. Love purples and greens. I would like to steal her photo to show you, but I won't. Just click here to see.

My first block was a large triangle. The base triangle was just a triangle plastic thingy tool for quilting. Never quite worked how to use these things. Cut round it and then just started adding fabric strips to the sides, but not the base. A couple of the strips I cut at an angle and some of the strips were varied. Now, I am not the best church attender, but I do find little bits of my Sunday School days pop up now and again. As soon as I had finished this I found myself singing "All things bright and beautiful" in particular the verse beginning "the purple headed mountain". I suppose this means I fit the brief of a river tumbling down a purple heather bank. It has ended up about 15" across the base and about 10" in depth, or thereabouts.

my purple headed mountain

The next two blocks I made were squares. Or they started off as squares but ended up slightly rectangular. I didn't square them off. I left it for Kaja, she might want to trim them moving the central focus slightly or even chop them up into smaller squares. I find that prospect quite exciting.

my three completed blocks

I could have kept making these all day. I was like a pig in clover, kona clover. Incidentally I went to my lqs to buy some more plain fabric. I bought two more purples and three greens. And ... you know what .... I bought exactly the colours I already had at home!

I am Queen Bee for November in this Bee. The best kept to last (?), this being an eleven month Bee. I am just grateful that everybody has stuck with it, always a danger when you are last!! At this stage I am undecided whether to go with a square within a square, sort of improvisational courthouse steps or a string block. I do love me a string quilt, but are string quilts so last year dahling? Whatever I decide by the end of this month, I would like a little bit of selvedge in it. So don't throw out your selvedges in the next week or so!

Helen x