Hive 7 June Block

Hi!  This is Rozsamaria in Hive 7!

This month Deana was our Queen Bee and she requested Flowering Snowball blocks in a wide variety of bright colors, with low volume background prints and black for the centers.  She pointed us to this tutorial, which I followed to the letter.  I'd done curved piecing for my Drunkard's Path quilt, so I wasn't too nervous, but I found that the hardest part was picking my prints and the block itself came together really quickly.

I'm sorry for the terrible picture - I'm cutting it a little close with this one, so I frantically took a picture of the block on my couch before I left for work yesterday.

Deana's question for us was "who got you hooked on quilting?"  I don't have the traditional answer for this - I didn't learn to quilt from anyone.  One of my friends from college died in a car accident a month to the day after our graduation.  It was a really difficult time for me.  I had trouble sleeping and I would look for projects for myself.  One day I decided that I should make her mother a quilt.  My grandmother had taught me to sew, but no one in the family had ever quilted.  I don't know where the idea came from, but make a quilt I did.  I had no idea what I was doing, but I enjoyed it.  Then I had friends get married and I made them a quilt, and a friend had a baby and I made her a quilt, and before I knew it I was a quilter.

June Block for Diana

Hi all!

This month has been much better, and, at least here in CT, it has been a lovely month!  This block was so easy to put together that I made two!  I can't wait to see the whole quilt.  I love teal/aqua and grey together!

Typically when I am quilting, I am watching something on Netflix or through my Comcast account.  I've watched the Friends series, MASH, The West Wing, Call the Midwife, Outlander (highly highly recommend).  Hope everyone is well!

Hive 9 block for June

Hi everyone, Grace here. I finally got around to making this block. We have just moved house and everything is in various boxes. but I eventually dug into enough of them to find fabric that was black and white (and big enough to cut a 10.5" square from!) but the white fabric has little bits of red in it. I hope that it's alright Jacki! I must agree with Toni that this is not my favourite method of making hsts, I like being able to control the directionality of a print.. but aside from that this is quite a fun block.

As for the question for this month, I think they are landing, it looks to me a bit like a tetris game! I will walk down to the post box and mail the block today hopefully!

Hive 1 block for June

This was a fun one to put together and I hope that it makes it to Germany safely.

Hive 6 Block for Summer

I had fun choosing colors for Summer's block this month.  Whenever given the choice, I end up with purples and blues.  At least I am predictable.

The question:  Have you ever participated in an online Quilt-Along (QAL)? If so, which one and did you enjoy it? If not, do you have any in mind or is it just not your thing?

I have followed along with Melissa of Happy Quilting for a couple QALs and I love the quilts that I made.  I enjoyed having someone keep me on a schedule and also loved seeing all the finished quilts.  

Thanks,
Nela

Snowball Sandwich or Deana's Flowering Snowball

I love Stashbee. I have tried new blocks every month, and admire the skill of my fellow Bees. This month's block for Deana, Flowering Snowball Block looked fun and not too difficult. The photos posted so far look lovely, perfect as far as I can tell. My experience has been slightly less than perfect. I have sewn many curves over the years. I even have a nifty sewing machine foot called the  Curve Master. Here I am, demonstrating how easy it is, just "lift and separate, no pins needed."

There is a ¼" seam guide.

It really does work that well. The foot comes with different adapters so that it fits almost any sewing machine. So, I put together a block and found the center square a little challenging. Seam Ripper to the rescue. I wanted mine to look good, and ideally as nice as all of the other blocks on the blog. Then I measured my completed block and found it a little bit small, about 12 ¼" unfinished. Dangit. So, I looked at my seam allowances and tried again. Same problem. Double Dangit. I went back to the template pattern and checked that I had it correctly printed. Yes. So, I tried again, this time with a regular ¼" foot. Same result. By this time I was slightly annoyed. Trying over and over expecting different results. I surrender, and I am mailing these blocks. Maybe they can go on the back.

They have whimsy. See the little girl and her pet? 

The title refers to how I am feeling right now. Not toward anyone, just about time spent and results not to my liking. For those of you from warmer climates, a snowball sandwich is a veiled threat from a friend or sibling during a snowball fight.

And Deana's question, "Who got you hooked on quilting?"  My mom gets the first nod, for letting me experiment on her Singer Featherweight from as early as I can remember. She turned me loose, and that was the best way I learned. I read her McCall magazines, followed patterns, cut up scraps and sewed doll clothes, doll house accessories, and then my own clothes. At age 16, I ordered a kit from McCall's, an applique pillow pattern in Pennsylvania Dutch Style. This was 1972. The kit contained everything to applique and then quilt a round pillow, make the red piping, put a zipper in the side... I was hooked! My first quilting class was in Berkeley from Roberta Horton in 1979. Lucky me! I still love to take classes, and make it a goal to travel to a big name teacher each year. The last 3 years I have learned from Sue Spargo, Gwen Marston, and Karla Alexander. I wonder who it will be this year?

Hive 3 - June Christmas Block

Since July is my turn as Queen Bee, I figured I better make the June block.

I absolutely loved it and it forced me to go through my FQ and find some neutrals.

I still had some Eiffel tower strips, which is quite fitting, given that we live only 1,5h away from Paris. I wasn't sure about the pegs, but I do like them after all. I hope Sylvia does too ;)

Sylvia's wanted to know which quilt we are most proud of and why. Below is what I call the "Harry Potter - Gryffindor" quilt. It is an abstract and purely improv quilt. Frankly, I get bored easily when cutting up hundreds of 3 1/2" squares, so I began venturing into improvisational quilting to get my creative juices flowing.

The quilt measure appr. 60 x 64" and it is an abstract interpretation of Gryffindor and its colors scarlet, gold, and black. The top features one rogue block of green, which represents Slytherin, since Harry had a real chance of ending up in Slytherin. The quilting was done by me on my home machine in green Aurifil and spirals out from the rogue Slytherin patch to show the ripple effect and the influence Parseltongue had on Harry.

At the bottom left, I balanced the Deathly Hallows with the upper right block, again in the same green print to highlight the link between the houses and the fact that Harry was also a Horcrux. It is bound in dark green.

The back of the quilt is held in Gryffindor colors, decorated with handwritten quotes from the books, such as "You might belong in Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart, their daring, nerve and chivalry, set Gryffindor's apart..." and quotes from Dumbledore, like "It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more." Since the quilt was a high school graduation gift for my little sis-in-law, my children drew graduation pictures, hand prints, etc.

Hive 7 -- June blocks for Deana

They are finally in the mail!!

 

Deana asked us to use modern or whimsical prints.  My stash is deep but it's a bit light on modern but whimsical I have!!  Check out those flying pigs?!?

On a whim, I pulled out the Double Wedding Ring templates from Marti Michell on the off-chance that the curves in these pieces matched.  They weren't an exact match, but I did float the arc along the edge of my paper pattern to guide my rotary blade and get a smoother cut. 

 The piecing went smoothly as long as I kept the concave edge of the dark pieces on top.

 

I got hooked on quilting slowly during the Bicentennial in the mid-70's.  I started by hand quilting a top in 1973 that I had embroidered for a graduation gift for my youngest sister.  Once I learned to piece (about 1977), I was completely taken with the process of cutting fabric up and stitching it back together.  I had lots of sewing experience at that point having majored in clothing in college and I think I enjoyed not having to worry about how a quilt fit anyone. 

 

In 1979, I opened a small quilt shop in my hometown (less than 50 bolts) certain that there were thousands of other quilters as frustrated as I was with trying to find good quality supplies.

 

I was wrong!  So I had to teach hundreds of other women to quilt and what began as a hobby with no long term goals became a thriving shop for 26 years and a teaching career that still occupies a great deal of my interest and time.

 

Today I'm on the edge of obsessed with hexagons and their allies and specialize in working with Marti Michell's line of rotary cutting templates to teach set-in (y-seam) piecing.

I hang out most days over at www.maryhueyquilts.blogspot.com

 

Can't wait to share my block for the month of July with all of you!!

 

Mary Huey

 

 

 

 

Hive 5 block

Hi, Everyone. It's Liz.

Here's Tisha's block for June. I haven't made a monochromatic quilt, but I love the idea.

Tisha asked us our favorite and least favorite part of quilting. I love the planning of a quilt, and I always put off the basting and actual quilting. Ugh - I have a number of quilt tops taunting me.

Hive 5 June block for Tisha

Kelly here with my June block for Tisha. I think I am going to change our group's name from Hive #5 to Hive HST. It is something I have never really done before but am getting really good practice since it seems like nearly every block our hive has done has included HST. :)

The other thing this group has shown me is that my color palette preference was pretty limited. While I had hoped for this to be a stash buster it has actually been a bit of a stash builder. I've had to branch out these past few months, buying fabrics with reds and yellows and greens.... colors I normally didn't use or even own.

For Tisha I made her all green block and it was nice to work in a monotone palette. I will have to do it again soon!

Her question was what our favorite and least favorite parts of quilting are. I'm still pretty new at quilting but for me the favorite part is shopping! Shopping for fabrics and patterns. My least favorite part is probably all the cutting. I find it a bit tedious. I know most people say the binding, but the cutting for me is the worst.