Hive 1 Block for Julia C

 Hi Julia,

This block was great fun, and I love the colour selection you asked for!

Ill be sending this block in the mail on Monday. Hope you enjoy! :)

Kathrin

Hive 1 Block for Julia C.

Sorry this posting is late (compared to when I put the block in the mail)! This was such a fun project and a great excuse to go through all my strip-scraps to pick out the lovely bright colors.  Can't wait to see it altogether! 

Enjoy!

Julia D.

Hive 1 March Block for Julia C.

Hi Julia,

I hope I was not too wild in my selection of bright fabric and that this block will come together nicely with the other bees' blocks for your quilt.😄

Happy quilting!

Marie

Hive 1 March Block for Julia

 

Hi Julia!

These were very fun bright colors! I hope this block will work out for you! I'll drop this in the mail today so it should be there soon. Can't wait to see the final quilt :) 

- Nicole

Hive 1, March Block for Julia C.

 

Hi Julia,

Hope my fabric choices for your block, is what you are looking for. This was fun to put together!

Unfortunately, it's too late to get it to the post office today. Posting rules to the US have changed and I need now a post-printed customs declaration for sending the blocks. It will probably be next Saturday, that I get the chance to post it to you.

Looking forward to seeing the quilt you are making with this. I love the colour combo. Purple is my least favourite colour, but after seeing this, I might throw it in more often! ;)

Happy sewing, stay safe,

Rita

Hive 2 March Tutorial

I confess that with quilting, I seem to gravitate toward easy blocks, that when put together, look far more complicated.  After spending waaay too much time perusing Pinterest and other quilting sites, I came across a free pattern from Kitchen Table Quilting.  See:  kitchentablequiltingblogspot.com  The scrap quit tutorial is called "Plaid-ish," which I love. 

This is a nice and quick block, because if you are like me, I feel squeezed this month for time--planning a garden, spring cleaning, maple syrup season, and prepping for my retirement in May.  It is a bit crazy here.

For this block, we will need fabrics with a dark value, mid value and light value:

• The darks will be mostly dark grey, grey-browns, and black.  
• The mid value fabrics are brights and may include mustard yellows, deep tangerine, greens on the lime side.
• The light fabrics are light grey, whites, creams--anything low volume.  Some of my light greys may be a bit dark, but if set against a really dark fabric, it will still have  enough contrast.

Here is my fabric selection:

From the dark fabric, cut 4 5" squares.

From the medium fabric, cut 4 rectangles measuring 1.5" x 5"

From the light Fabric, cut 1, 1-1/2" square

Here are my cut pieces:

Sew together in rows as follows:

For the 5" squares, press toward the darks, but if you want to nest when sewing together, press the mediums to the light for the middle piece.

Sew together.

Done!  It should measure 10.5" x 10.5" 

These blocks will be used in a quilt I am making for my brother, Bob.

Happy Spring, everyone.  It's just around the corner!

Hive 5 March Tutorial - Broken Frame Block

Broken Frame - Practice block, alternate color way

Hello Hive 5! I’m so excited to be participating in Stashbee for my second year. For March, I’m requesting that you make what I’m calling a Broken Frame block. I doodled this myself, but I’m sure since it’s flying geese and squares that the design’s been done before.

It finishes at 15.5”, however I’m requesting that you send me the components deconstructed. The quilt will need to be assembled in rows rather than blocks to achieve my final design (pictured below). The photo above is my practice block (made in another different color way) so you can see what the block would look like constructed. (Also, apologies up front for poor photo quality! I've been struggling with lighting lately.)

Fabric

You’ll need three colors for this block: light blue, medium to dark blue, and light to medium gray.

I like tone on tones and modern prints. I would prefer no batiks, solids, or licensed character/novelty/children’s prints. If your patterned fabric has white, gray, black, or blue in it, that’s alright, as long as the fabric still reads as the main color. Please try to stay away from multi-color prints.

Here’s my fabric pull:

I could only get so much natural light and couldn't get around the shadow :(

Light blue can range to aqua, but don’t use anything too green. Medium to dark blue can be royal, navy, cerulean, sapphire, etc. I feel like I didn't have a great variety of blues in my stash, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask! I like to use the four-at-a-time flying geese method, so those pieces end up being the same fabric, but feel free to get as scrappy as you want! I’d love a variety of fabrics.

Cutting

To create this block (or rather the components of the block), you’ll need to cut the following:

4 - 5.5” gray squares

1- 5.5” medium to dark blue square

1 - 6.5” gray square*

1 - 6.5” light blue square*

4 - 3.5” gray squares*

4 - 3.5” light blue squares*

*I use Melanie Ham’s four-at-a-time flying geese tutorial, which is where I got the measurements for the flying geese pieces. If you prefer a different method of creating flying geese, the starred pieces are the ones you would substitute for your own method’s measurements. 

https://melaniekham.com/no-waste-flying-geese/

Assembly

As mentioned above, here is the tutorial I like to use for four-at-a-time flying geese:

https://melaniekham.com/no-waste-flying-geese/

*There is a video at the bottom of the post if you prefer watching instead of reading :)

Of course, feel welcome to use whatever method you like best!

You'll make 4 gray-center geese and 4 blue-center geese:

Then, you’ll piece the flying geese together into four "arrow" units, the pieces of the frame:

And that’s it! I would like for the block to be sent deconstructed, so there's nothing more to do :) I can’t wait to see all of your beautiful blocks!

-Amy Gatto

Hive 1 March Tutorial - Warm and Sunny Zipper Block for Julia C

 I've chosen a zipper quilt block variation for my month. This is inspired by a quilt by Rachel Hayes, which I originally saw on Pinterest. She has since shut down her quilt-specific blog but you can see some quilts at her personal blog here.

Colors: 

Bright, true yellows, oranges, pinks/corals, magenta into purple. Please keep these bright and saturated--avoid pastels or anything that reads outside of the color group (so no brown-y oranges, no blue-y purples). Prints, solids, batiks all welcome. 

You will also need some black and white fabrics.

Cutting:

Of colored fabrics: cut 16 6.5x2.5 strips.

Of black and white fabrics: cut 16 2.5x2.5 squares.

Optional: replace one colored strip with black and white, and one square with a colored fabric.

Sewing:

Match up each strip with a square to make 8.5x2.5 strip units. 

I had an orphan block in the same colors, so that got turned into strips! Feel free to do the same with any of your scraps/orphan blocks, if you want.

Begin sewing the strips together. Do not put two strips of the same fabric touching. Your final block will have two rows of eight strip units. Change the direction with every strip—no seams to match on this part! Note that the small square is in the upper right corner of the block. 

If you chose to do one reverse colored strip, put it anywhere in the block. Make sure that you are following the pattern of the square placement--don't get confused by the color change. 

Press seams however you like. The final block should come out to 16.5x16.5.

Some more pictures:

I've had exactly one 5x5 square of that stripey watercolor fabric forever...so glad I found a use for it!

Four blocks together.

Thank you all!

Hive 4 March Tutorial - Improv Block for Dawn

 Finished block: 14.5 x 14.5

Color scheme:  lime green/apple green/grass green (preferably solid) and bright pink or bright purple - solids or small prints as long as it reads bright pink or purple 

Cut:

(1) 16.5 x 16.5 lime green block

(1) 16.5 x 16.5 bright pink or bright purple block. 

————

Place the blocks on top of each other - both RIGHT SIDES UP.  With a solid there is no real right side obviously. 

________

Make your four cuts

—————

Take away two of the top and two of the bottom so the colors alternate. 

———

Sew together with scant 1/4 inch seam allowance. It’s ok to use a smaller seam allowance since the block is getting trimmed down  

Trim down to 14.5” x 14.5” - but I can trim down for you :)

Watch this video for more info. 

https://youtu.be/GqlU1HiSaYU

Hive 3 March Tutorial - Ocean Waves half block

 Hello Hive 3 friends!  I am so blessed to again be part of Stashbee (my 4th year).  I've love getting to know other quilters through stashbee and IG, I love getting to make new blocks that use techniques I've never tried before, and of course, I love it when it is my turn to be Queen and get blocks in the mail all month long! For this month, I've chosen a deceptively simple "Ocean Waves" block inspired by few quilts I've seen on pinterest or IG (here's one example from Fat Quarter Shop).  

The "standard" Ocean Waves block is essentially a four patch with a lot of HSTs, which ends up 16x16.  However, when I made my test block, the whole block took about 3 hours to make, which is twice our time allowance for stashbee.  So, I am only asking for "half" a block.  With two-at-a-time Half Square Triangles (HSTs), making this half block is a breeze!

Colors

I would like to stick with ANY BLUE FABRIC for the blues, and 

ANY white or white-on-white fabric for the white.  

I would like the blues to be scrappy, but the white color to be all the same for the whole block. 

Lets talk BLUES.  Some examples of fabrics I like are below.  You can see that the blues can have all different colors in them, but are mostly blue.  I don't really like batiks, and would like you to choose prints (one or two solids in the collection would be fine, just not all solids).  My personal tastes definitely run toward modern prints, think Ruby Star, Cotton and Steel, Windam Fabrics, Riley Blake, and Paintbrush Studios.  However, this is a scrappy quilt, so please use what you have!!  I adore little fussy cuts and little hidden cuteness, and any fabric you think will make me smile I'm sure I will love and appreciate!  Here are photos of fabrics from my stash that I love and would work with this quilt.  (Of course my basement sewing room has the WORST LIGHT EVER so these blues are much "happier" in person but you get the drift.).  Any and all shades of blue are welcome!!

Last point on blues:  I would prefer that all the blues be different fabrics.  However, I am aware that Stashbee has a ten different fabric ask limit, and I am asking for 12 different blue fabrics in addition to the white so I guess that is technically 13.  So, if you are not able to come up with 12 different blue fabrics, please reach out to me and I would be more than happy to send you some from my stash for you to use.  My scrap bins are always overflowing and I would be more than happy to share.  (But if you are like me (aka a fabric hoarder) the hard part will be narrowing down your fabric choices rather than not having enough.  but seriously, i'm not out to break the rules so just let me know what you need :D )

 now for the fun part....

Fabric Cutting:

12   3x3 inch square of 12 different BLUE fabrics

12   3x3 inch squares of white fabric

8     2.5x2.5 inch squares of white fabric.  

Making the Half Square Triangles:

With a water soluble pen (or heat disappearing, or pencil or whatever magical device you use to mark your fabric), draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of the white 3x3 squares.  Pair each white 3x3 square with a blue 3x3 square right sides together and sew 1/4 inch on each side of the drawn line.

Then, cut on the drawn line, making two triangles.  

Now you have two happy HSTs!  Press to the dark side and trim each HST to 2.5 inch square.  

Do this for all twelve of your blue and white squares to make a total of 24 HSTs.  I like to chain piece this step and it goes quickly :) Then, sort them into two piles so that each pile contains each one of your 12 blue fabrics.  

Laying Out Your Block

Then, grab 4 2.5in white squares and 12 HST and lay them out like below:  

*these will be turned every which way in the quilt, so there is really no top or bottom or "right way up".

also, PAY ATTENTION to the slant of the triangles! It's really easy to get them turned around the wrong way (ask me how i know, lol)

I pressed the seams in rows 1 & 3 one way, and seams in rows 2 & 4 the other way for easy, beautiful nesting.  

Repeat this step with your other 12 HST and 4 white 2.5 squares.  You can see that I mixed up the colors so that the blues in each square are in different places, to go for that scrappy look.  

Sew these two together (rotate them so they look like the photo above) to finish your "half block" for me.  Should finish at about 8 1/2 by 16 1/2.  

Ta Da!!  Give your self a pat on the back and know how much I appreciate you for trimming all those HSTs so I don't have to :)

Love you guys!

katy @queen_city_quilts