Global Scrap Bee - July Edition!

Happy Canada Day everyone!

And you know the best part (other than a day off and local strawberries appearing in the supermarket)? July's my month to be Queen Bee for Global Scrap Bee!  For me, the toughest bit of these on-line bees is choosing the block for others to make. Not too easy, not too hard. Not too small, or you even up making a pile yourself to get a decent sized quilt. So many factors! And then there's colour... and I'm not so good at decision making!

On a recent post, I got a few great suggestions. I've also been pinning ideas to my Bee Blocks board on Pinterest. When a bee mate posts a tutorial on FaceBook (or Flickr where our bee began), I pin it. It's so much easier than scrolling through past posts when it's time to make the block.

In the end, I've decided on the Converging Corners block from Film in the Fridge. I figured that this time, I'd make some test blocks before I launched them on my bee-mates. I'll finally be making an aqua and red quilt! This palette from Design Seeds sums it up pretty nicely (though it is a little Christmas-y for July)!

http://design-seeds.com/

Out came the red scraps...

 And then the aqua...

Partway through, I thought some greys would look good and give a little more variety to the palette...

 Then I remembered these prints... perfection!

 And the finished product!

 I had to sneak this little fox in... he's just too cute!

I can hardly wait for the blocks to start appearing in my mailbox!

J

P.S. If you're looking for something a little more patriotic, check out Adrienne's (from Chezzetcook Modern Quilts) finish from earlier this week. Fabulous!

Meet the Squares!

Confession time - I belong to a quilt bee. Two, actually. In my mind, the phrase quilting bee conjures up images of little old ladies gathered around a quilt frame stitching and sipping tea.

That is not what my bee looks like.

My bee, Q-Squared, is made up of four Girl Guide friends (and yes, adults are Girl Guides too!) who love to quilt. Guiding brought us together and the quilting is an off shoot - one of those things that started as "Hey, we should get together sometime and..."

So... meet the Squares.

There's Q-A. She loathes paper piecing and loves a simple pattern that comes together quickly. She's the queen when it comes to knowing when our local shops have a sale on and you can bet she didn't pay full price for that thread she's using! She's also very diligent about working through her UFO list - something I've tried to emulate! During this quilt therapy session, she was working on a jelly roll pattern to use her Girl Scout fabric purchased while back. Check out the GSUSA fabrics - these Canadian Girl Guides are very jealous!





Then there's Q-B. She's the beginner of the group - calls herself a "learner." She's hasn't picked a particular style and isn't afraid to throw herself into a complicated pattern if she falls in love with it. She's been plugging away every since her first "lesson" with me and I swear, there isn't a person in her family that hasn't gotten a quilt! She also sews clothes... which leaves me in awe. And we're not just talking p.j. pants here; she sews skirts and blazers and bathing suits and - you get the idea! This week-end's project is an autograph quilt from Heritage Explosion 2011 - our province's 100th anniversary Girl Guide camp.

And then there's Q-D. She's our engineer. If there's no instructions to be found for something you found on Pinterest, Q-D can probably come up with a plan. She's more of a piecer than a quilter, but we're keeping her anyway. I've never actually seen her fabric stash, but I suspect it may actually fill her home, or at least a room. This week-end's project saw her at the laptop more often than the sewing machine. I can't fully explain it, but her freeform blocks had an accompanying Excel spreadsheet! 

Our Quilt Therapy sessions happen once a month if we can get our schedules to agree. Sometimes we can't all make it, but it's always fun. We catch up on work dramas, Girl Guide stuff, and consult on whatever projects we have on the go.  And there's usually a fair bit of show and share of completed masterpieces - sometimes it happens more than once when we just can't wait for everyone to be here! Even though two of the Squares drive an hour to get to the big city, I think they'd say it's worth it.

So if my living room/dining room/kitchen contains four laughing women, two tables, four sewing machines, an ironing board, a cutting mat, at least two rotary cutters, a variety of rulers, and a wack of fabric, Q-Squared
is to blame!

Thanks for reading!

J