Let's try it again

Thanks for all your advice about my Brit Bee block that wasn't working :)

I've unpicked the border, remade the cornerstones and sliced up one of my most treasured fat quarters ever, Heather Ross' Swimming Sisters in blush, and here is the result!

I'm so much happier with this :) I think it's light, fresh, airy and hopefully still beachy, but as the wise Catrin suggested, more tropical beach than British ;)

What do you think? Better?

Fiona x

Brit Bee Round 3

Round 3 is starting for the Brit Bee and after much dithering I have finally chosen a star and fabric to make my block. Yay!

I've been thinking about using some of my Mendocino fabric by Heather Ross for ages and decided that now is as good a time as any, so I started pulling fabric. Before I knew it, I was head over heels in love with the pile of fabric in front of me, and decided that just a single block wasn't enough! I have a whole quilt planned for this pretty pile :)

I managed to get a grip of myself and choose just a few fabrics to make my star. I wanted a round star shape and decided to use the Evening Star from the Summer Sampler Series. I've made this star a couple of times before and really like it, but then I remembered a gorgeous block I'd seen Rita of Red Pepper Quilts make a while back called a Colorado Star from the book 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars by Carol Doak. Now, I don't have a copy of that book (but I'm seriously tempted to buy it) so I used the Evening Star templates from Katie at Swim Bike Quilt and added in the centre star part.

I love the star but I'm not sure about the border I've added to the block. I'm going for a light, sunny, beachy feel and the blue strips are supposed to be like water. The essex linen cornerstones are supposed to be like sand, but I'm not sure it's working. What do you think?

Fiona x

A top and some blocks

In my last post I had somehow managed to start a St Louis 16 Patch quilt, well it's now a finished top!

the 20 blocks I had already made became 25 and now I have a 70" square quilt top. I was very tempted to go bigger, but the kids have announced they need another quilt for the living room. Apparently this is for them and they have proclaimed it the perfect size as it is. I've already decided how I'm going to quilt it and now I just need to find some backing fabric.

I managed to get my Brit Bee blocks for June finished. I wasn't too happy with the first one. It looked much better in my head. The block itself is beautiful. It's called Whirling Star by Faith at Fresh Lemons, but my fabric choices really didn't do the block justice.

So I decided to draw my own block for the second one, and planned my fabrics a bit better

I spent some time over the weekend stitching and now it looks like this.

I decided to applique it to the background fabric and it turned out to be a bit of a nightmare to get those points tucked in! Seams meeting at a sharp point like that do not make for easy applique! I really need to remember that!

Happy Tuesday!

Fiona x

A lovely little swap

I've finished my insane blocks! I really enjoyed making these and stayed up until 2am stitching those appliqué petals down, because I just didn't want to stop stitching!

The first one is a Honey Bee block. I fell in love with this gorgeous little block on Flickr and just had to make one. I added a little frame in turquoise and then decided to keep framing :)

The second is a postage stamp block. I can't believe I was crazy enough to sew 144 little squares together, but I really really enjoyed making it. Both blocks finished slightly bigger than planned at 13"

I made them for the lovely Jan. We decided to do a little block swap when we both discovered that we were planning very similar quilts. The plan was to make a couple blocks, each with a bright 6" traditional block on a soft and pretty low volume background.

These are the blocks Jan made me. Aren't they beautiful?! (Sorry Jan, I should have given them a quick press before I took a photo!)


My lovely Brit Bee girls have been busy making me blocks like these. Hopefully I'll have a whole quilt to show off soon!

Fiona x

little packages

July is my turn to be the Queen Bee in the Brit Bee and I'm ever so excited! In my last post I showed a massive pile of fabric and have spent a good few hours since then transforming that pile into these

12 little packages of some very treasured fabric. Those 12 little packages will hopefully be heading out into the big wide world tomorrow, once I've bought some ziplock bags and a tasty little surprise to pop in with each one. Oh, and yes I said 12 packages, in case there are any eagle-eyed Bees out there that are good at counting ;)

Today is the first day of our school holidays. As anybody in the UK could probably predict, it is pouring rain. I have 2 children in the living room doing some kind of wrestling involving cushions and armchairs, and my oldest boy is upstairs sulking. Sigh.....

I have shut the living room door and am about to dive into this delicious pile of fabric. I woke up this morning and read this post by Cluck Cluck Sew and had an overwhelming urge to pull out my bundle of Freshcut by Heather Bailey. I have been admiring it for over 2 years, but have been waiting for the perfect pattern. I've pulled some co-ordinating extras (on the left - Thankyou Jo!) I'm going to chop it all up, and ignore the children and cushions that I can see rolling around the living room floor!

Right, I'm off to start cutting :)

Happy Thursday!

Fiona x

Playing with Geese

I've had a grand old time today playing with flying geese. The lovely Trudi asked for Flying Geese blocks to start us off on the second year of the Brit Bee on Flickr using Karavan by Valerie Wells and some Kaffe Fasset scraps. Her last words on asking us to make her flying geese were "Please play and have fun with it!"

I have a great app for my Iphone called the Quick and Easy Block Tool. I really like it, it gives cutting and assembly directions for loads of quilt blocks and gives different size options. I love the Night Vision block. I made a few a while ago for a mini quilt swap, and decided that would be a good start. The last time I made them I was too scared to try anything smaller than a 6" block, but this time I went for a 3" block :)

After that I took Trudi's instructions to heart and couldn't stop playing! I didn't plan this block at all, it just kind of fell out of my head as I went. It ended up a bit of a biggie at 20", and I could have happily kept playing, but then Trudi may have ended up with a little quilt top!

The little pinwheels in the corners are made from the offcuts from some of the geese, so I decided it was fine to include them, as they are the products of the geese - oooo they are gosling blocks!

Anyway, I hope Trudi likes her block. I had a lot of fun making it :) There are some other lovely geese blocks popping up in the Brit Bee group if you fancy a gander at them (Ho ho I crack  myself up!)

Happy Wednesday
Fiona x

Running in circles

For April in the Brit Bee the lovely Jo asked us to make any kind of block we fancied, as long as it involved circles. I pondered this for a couple of weeks, and thought about applique, drunkards paths and dresdens, but then I remembered the beautiful port-holes that Lu Summers makes, and had a bit of a puzzle about how to make them.

Here's what I can up with

I don't know if there's a better way to make them (there probably is!) but I'm pretty happy with how these came out and I hope Jo is too :)

Expect to see more of this type of thing from me. I've realised that you could make any shape and can have pieced fabric in the centre, like the blue circle at the bottom.

Too. Many. Possibilities!

The other Brit Bees have made some fantastic circley blocks, you should have a wee look

Happy Tuesday :)
Fiona x

Fabric Fiona and other Bee blocks

So this is my attempt at a self portrait for my Brit Bee block for Miss February. you can read about what the lovely Jennie asked us to do here, and you can see another couple of Brit Bee portraits here and here. It's not quite what I had in mind when I set out but I *think* I like it.

When I first started planning this block I wanted to be peacefully sitting under a tree, in the sunshine reading a book. It's how I would love to spend an hour, if I had a spare hour, a tree to sit under, and some sunshine. I was a bit worried that if I put a tree trunk in, it would be really hard for Jennie to get my block to fit in with all the others, so I've left it out.

I chose turquiosey blues because they are colours I think of as calm and peaceful. I really hope Jennie likes it, and it fits in okay with the other portraits she'll be making into a quilt.

I've also finished adding to Em's block in the Be Free Bees. This Bee is great fun, if a little scarey. Each member of the bee made a starter block, which is then mailed round each member of the bee and each person adds whatever they like to the block. The rules are there are pretty much no rules. When Em's lovely block of birds arrived I just had to put them in a tree. After 7 attempts to get the cat sitting on a branch I almost gave up and appliqued a tree, but I got there in the end :)

I've also finished my do.Good Stitches blocks. Jolene from Blue Elephant Stiches asked for rainbow stripes. I can't wait to see the quilt she makes.

Oh and ages ago I made a little block to go in a surprise quilt for Rachel, the founder of do.Good Stitches. All the members of the Bee contributed a block. She has now received the beautiful quilt and from the sound of things she loves it :) You can read about it here.

Happy Thursday!
Fiona x

Hand Quilting

A while back I asked advice about how to quilt my Loulouthi quilt and got some really great ideas from some of you (Thankyou!) In the end I decided to hand quilt it, using perle cotton in a random, butterfly garden kind of thing and I thought you might be interested to see how it going

I am so glad I decided to hand quilt this. I am totally head over heels in love with it and snuggling up on the sofa with this on my lap, doing a little bit of stitching in whatever colour takes my fancy is a perfect way to spend a winter's evening :)

I chose to back it with a print from Heather Ross's Mendocino line (that I got on sale) and it is the softest backing I've ever felt!. The kids keeps squirrelling themselves under it while I work on it because it's so soft.

I did make a rather big error of judgement when I basted this though. I decided to give spray basting a go. It was after I'd spay basted that I decided on hand quilting. I have found that spray basting does not make quilting with perle easy. It is hard to get that needle and thread through the quilt!
But I'm getting there slowly. I've zigzagged it all round the edges so it can be snuggled under without too much worry while I'm working on it.

I've also finished my Brit Bee blocks for the lovely Judith she asked for any kind of log cabin with the centre of it to be our own fabric to remind her of us. I hope she doesn't mind a little bit of embroidery :)

And I've finished my blocks for do.Good Stitches. It's my month again this month and I chose a snowball design for a boy's I Spy quilt for Project Linus. I've already received some blocks from the lovely ladies in the Joy Circle and can't wait for the rest to arrive. I think this is going to be such a cute quilt!

It's a big day in our house today because it is my daughter's 6th birthday! I can't believe she's 6 already!!! How did that happen?!? We got her a new bike and she is chuffed to bits with it! It's her favourite colour turquoise, it has a stand, gears, suspension  and a bell and best of all it has a glittery saddle! I want one just like it for myself!

She took it out for a quick spin this morning before school :)

Happy Birthday Baby Big Girl!

Fiona x