Hive 7 October Tutorial

Hi!  I am Debbie, I live in Houston with my husband of 33 years and more dogs than I know what to do with.  I have been in Stash Bee for 4 years and always have a lot of fun with the blocks you ask for as well as the blocks you send.  My experience has been that I am happier 

when I go scrappy in a bee and I just love scrappy so this works well!

You will be making a super simple 9 patch for me.  They are only 6.5 inches and a snap to make so I am asking for 4 of them.  When I put them together they will create a simple single Irish chain.  Each block is made of 2.5 inch squares - perfect for those precuts and scrap buckets.  

Don't trim them - I will make sure they are pressed and trimmed square! 

For the background, think low volume.  White on white, gray on white, 

a color on white, creams, grays.  Please limit the solid white.  

For the 5 colored pieces, I really want BRIGHT colors.  No blacks or browns.  I don't care for jade or plum so limit those colors.  Make sure the colors are bright and contrast with the background.  The only fabrics that don't seem to work are those with either a white or light background and 

those with a lot of white in the print.  I have no problem with batiks or prints.  

I made 6 blocks to show a good sample of choices.  Every single block came from my scrap basket.  Try not to repeat any fabric in one block.  It's fine if the fabrics show up in other blocks - 

they won't be adjacent to each other and will be fine!  

Don't overthink this, it will look great when I mix all the blocks up and put them together.

If you are feeling generous, send along 6.5 inch low volume squares for my alternate grid.  

That's totally up to you!

Construction

For the 4 blocks, cut 20 brightly colored 2.5 inch squares and 16 low volume (lv) 2.5 inch squares.

Arrange 5 colored and 4 lv blocks in a 9 patch like this:

I constructed these in strips of 3 and pressed all to the same side, 

alternating to allow me to nest the seams and get good corners.  

Look at these blocks and the layout for examples:

You can see the pattern starting to show (helps to squint and maybe tilt your head to the right-lol) - it will take a lot more blocks but it's going to be pretty!

I hope these are easy and fun for you.  Thank you - it will be a pretty little quilt, I think!