Triple B Bee March blocks
Here are Latifah’s March blocks for our Bricolage & Butter bee!
She requested 14.5” pieced blocks any way we fancied, BUT no Log Cabin Blocks!
She was inspired by the blacktop and colors at a playground/park (the dark gray is Kona Charcoal). Latifah is the queen of solids, if it isn’t obvious enough! I can’t wait to see how all of our different blocks come together for this one!
While piecing the first improve block I almost went nuts, so there was NO way I was going to do it again. A little more planning the second time around with crayons & graph paper restored my sanity and view of the world as it should be– measured and precise.
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Triple B Bee February blocks
… well we had more like two sets of blocks to do in March, so I am not really THAT behind in posting.
This week I handed these lovelies over to the amazing Jenny, I hope she likes my fabric additions, and I can’t wait to see all of them together! We were instructed to do the Blind Paper Bag piecing just like January, it was super fun to do again! I still really want to do one of my own someday!
This one is my favorite b/c of the converging different shades of linen, I always try to keep my linen colors consistent with my projects, since it is a natural fiber it tends to vary a lot. But after doing this, I actually really like them all mixed up!
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Triple B Bee January blocks
As mentioned yesterday, I’m in a Bee, and Jane kicked off our adventure in January (I know, I know, I am a wee bit late in posting this… I don’t know WHAT my problem is!) with a beautifully inviting package containing instructions to construct her blocks using “The Denyse Schmidt Improvisational Method of Blind Paper Bag Piecing.”
Printed paper bags and all…
What the heck is blind-paper-bag-blah-blah-blah-piecing??
Ummmm, only the best thing EVER! For those of you who don’t know what this method is, I sure didn’t, the basics are first you cut up, or use your scraps, into three categories, small, medium, and large. Then you start with two pieces of fabric from the small bag, sew them together and trim however you want, next take a third out of the bag repeat sewing and trimming however you would like. When your small pieces are too small move onto the Medium bag, and then to the Large when necessary. Jane asked for blocks between 13 and 14 inches, so in this case, that was pretty much my only boundary. BUT here is the catch, there are a few “pesky rules,” as Jane instructs, that make it even more FUN!
1) No peeking or dumping back, you have to use what you pull. That is the beauty of this method. I will let you cheat 1 time per size. So three put backs per block.
2) I would prefer to have things pieced a little more square (wonky is fine, but no hard angles please.
Let me just say, for me, this was SO FUN, satisfying, & LIBERATING! I’ll admit, I did peek a bit, I was the kid that tried to unwrap my gifts at Christmas days before, I couldn’t help myself! But I did not dump them out or anything, and it was just to get a sense of the color pallet so I could add a little of my own fabric which she gave us permission to do.
I actually didn’t put anything back even though it was permitted either, I pulled pieces out of the bag and sewed, which is evident in the first one with the addition of that large piece of natural fabric. Another thing I did was I decided to NOT iron in between joining pieces; I made this decision to stretch my comfort zone, try something new, and to get just the right amount of wonk. Mission accomplished, and boy was it freeing! I am for SURE going to be doing this for a quilt for myself in the near future (read near as next couple years)!
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I’m in a BEEEEEE!!!!
…. a quilting bee, that is! After our second LA MQG meeting (my first) Jamie so fantastically rounded 12 of us up to form a quilting bee of our very own, I was pretty much beside myself to even be considered– it was like when I was in elementary school all awkward with glasses and the teacher told me I did a great job on a project or something!! I’ll spare you the braces analogy! Anyway… If you are SUPER observant, you were probably already onto to me. In my side bar over there —> you’ll see links to all of the members of our Bricolage & Butter Bee, or Triple ‘B’ Bee for short. Smarty Jamie explains what Bricolage & Butter means over on her site as, “… a reincarnation of our favorite childhood pastime—playing house.” Playing House?? I’m pretty darn good at that these days, so I’m thinkin’ it’s a pretty good name! You can check out all of our progress over the next year over at our flickr pool.
What the heck IS a quilting bee, anyway!?
I suppose there are different ways of doing a bee, but here is how we are working it: There are 12 of us. Each of us picks a month of the year. On our chosen month we bring to our monthly meeting fabric, instructions, & guidelines for the other 11 members to make a specified number of blocks, usually two or three, and then return them to the lucky lady the next meeting! THIS MEANS YOU GET 30-ish blocks for a quilt of your VERY OWN!!! How exciting is that??? Very!
Here is the amazing quilt that got me all twitterpated about such a thing in the first place! Look at all those unique blocks! People, there is no way that they could all come out of one person’s head, that is what I LOVE most!!
Alissa’s Block Party quilt
photo by Alissa
more about this quilt, here.
The blocks that Cristin has been getting back over at Sew This Is My Life have me pretty excited about the possibilities too! I am in love!!
photo by Cristin
So, my month is July! What am I going to do? I. have. no. idea. Only that I know I want it to be an everyday quilt that I can leave out in my living room and oogle at on an hourly basis…. not that it has to match anything, I just don’t want it to be girly so Mr. K can love it too. Oh, and I think it will involve gray since I am currently obsessed.
Tomorrow I’ll show ya the blocks I did for Jane in January!
categories Bricolage & Butter Bee | 5 comments so far!
