Bee blocks-April 2021

Two blocks this month!

First up-

Member : Heather

Theme : wonky cabin block

Next up-

Member :Cat

Theme : block representing your favourite song

Bee blocks-a new approach

At the onset of the lockdown our usual bee block plans went a bit awry. As we had no face to face meetings all blocks had to be completed and posted. Some people just couldn't face sewing, the postal system had gone a bit crazy, so it all came to a slow halt.

At the beginning of 2021 we thought it would be a good idea to get some kind of bee block project going even though we had no idea when we might meet up again.

So a new plan was hatched-every month someone would suggest a theme and all the participants would make a block, but not to pass on. Everyone keeps their own blocks. They can make them any size, or colour as long as they stick to the theme, and at the end of the year we would all have enough blocks to make our own quilts. They would all be very different, but the themes behind the blocks would be what links them together.

This was put to the guild as a suggestion to see how many people were interested. So many people wanted to take part that it is now extended into next year! Anne and Fiona (our queen bees!) went about sorting out a timetable to accommodate 20 members. Each month we have either one or two people who suggest a theme, then we sit back and wait for the photos!

March was the starting month. Just one theme to begin with and here are the results-

Member : Mags

Theme : Spring

What a start! Can't wait to see the rest of this project.

This is what the spring quilt might have looked like!

 

Virtual show and tell-April 2021

It's a bumper month this month so lets get straight to it!

This is Katie's first finish of the year, and it's for her son

Mags is showing some amazing advance planning by starting her Christmas quilt now(although she doesn't specify which Christmas!)
This is the first block of the "My favourite colour is Moda" quilt in festive colours. This block is 36"x36"!



 Irene took part in the MQG mini swap and produced this lovely green quilt

       She made this quilt for her guild's rainbow challenge and was so impressed with it that she popped out and located a matching child for the photo

This is a bag she made for one of her granddaughters. The pockets on the back are a reused supermarket vegetable bag!

.....and finally this is her finished quilt from the Quilt Room's BOM

This is one of Jo's famous dandelion clock blocks, made in
 her easily recognisable colour palette.
 Also has her usual amazing quilting

This is Heather's Basically Ballroom BOM quilt. The close-ups

 show the amazing quilting which she is (very honestly!) not taking the credit for.

 It was done by a longarmer by the name of Janette Chilver

This is her finished ribbon punch quilt from the workshop we did with Jenny Haynes.
The quilting on this one was done by one of our former members, Kelly Orr

Diane has finally finished this quilt kit that she's had for three years!(although i have some that are even older than that!)

She made this cushion from a pattern in Love Patchwork & Quilting magazine, and has even hand-quilted it

And she's responsible for this month's animal design-which is

 not a bird!

What a brilliant job of Tartan Kiwi's highland cow design.

 A few of us have used this pattern and i'm always amazed how different they all look!

This is Tom's Celebrate Pride quilt, a pattern from the Athena Workshop

and this is his finished Adelyn Kay quilt, pattern by Bret Auilt Designs.

There was a doggie pic to go with this one but the dog was grubby and therefore cannot be Eddie (aka world's cleanest dog) 

Perhaps if Tom spent less time pattern testing he would have noticed that Eddie has been swapped for a dog with much lower standards of cleanliness

Liz has been busy this month! The ram mosaic was from a class she did with the QGBI. 

The multitude of mice are for a project to provide all children starting school this year with a toy mouse to carry around with them, hopefully reducing the stress of the first few weeks.

 Two will be leaving for my house, to reduce the stress that my cats suffer when not being fed every few minutes

 

Liz has also finished her version of the lockdown quilt,
where she has replaced some of our blocks with some of her own!!

            

Barbara did another class with Irene Roderick called
Choreography with the Wall and these are two pieces that she produced

and this is a baby quilt made to her own design from a layer cake

Anne has just finished piecing this lovely top that she's calling
her Moroccan Tile quilt. It's taken some time but it was worth it!
 All the fabric is from Kaffe Fassett.
It's headed to a longarmer to be quilted-very sensible when you look at the size!

Sheila has made this as a present for one of her pHD supervisors,
but i trust she's not handing it over until she gets her results! The pattern is called Oh Deer, which i'm sure is not going to be a bad omen....

Fiona's made this baby book bag and nappy pouch in this 

brilliant fabric

Karen has made another tree quilt but this time using the
same background fabric for all the blocks to give them the look of floating and highlight her fabulous quilting.
I should reassure everyone that Karen is working on some pieces involving birds, so normal service will be resumed next month

Helen made this brilliant machine needle case with the Tryst 

quilting guild. It makes it much easier to keep track of all the different types of needle you have lying around! 

Helen made hers from scraps.

She made this one from her stash of Karen Lewis fabric, 

which must be somewhat reduced after this!

I've left these two picturess to the end so i can put them together. Heather and Irene are both incredible embroiderers who are big fans of Sue Spargo. These are some blocks from the BOM that they are doing this year and hopefully will supply us with more blocks as they go along. It's such a pity that you can't see how astonishing the colours are until you see them up close. Watch out for the next instalment.

As well as all this work, some of us took part in an embroidery sampler class over 6 weeks with Stitchbirdie. I'll put those in a separate post, along with the first month of our new look bee block challenge!

There are also a few of the guild taking part in the Forthline project, where everyone taking part is given a marked piece of the shoreline and has to produce something to represent it. Hopefully there will be lots of quilted blocks in the finished artwork, which will be on public display once it's finished. I'll do a separate post in this too, once everyone is finished