More Scrappy Bee Blocks and some winnings

June already! Well it’s time to show off the 2 beautiful blocks that my Bee Sisters requested for April and May. They are the kind of blocks that look great on their own, I mean that you could make a bigger version and turn them into a cushion cover, a mini quilt or a placemat (actually, Tomomi did make beautiful placemats with the Road to Tenesse design that Erin, the May Mama Bee, chose. I also liked the fussy cutting that Anna‘s block called for and all the random scrappy bits added around.

Anna‘s April Bee Blocks

 

 

Erin’s blocks required a bit of precise cutting and a scant 1/4″ seam. I found that pressing the seams open helped to maintain the accurate measurements, but still, some of the corners were not matching when assembling the whole block, even though I remade some of the patches!!! (I always cut extra squares because I know I’m more likely to not getting it perfect the first time…)

I don’t know if it’s only me or what, but even though I like the scraps I have, after all it is fabric that I bought and obviously love, I feel that everyone else’s blocks have such lovely fabric choices! I probably need a new scrappy stash!

 

I’m so loving being part of this Bee! I was thinking that I might make one extra block of each month again, I’ll quilt them and bind them and I’ll have them hanging on a hemp string with wooden cloth pegs all around the walls on my sewing room to decorate. Wouldn’t that be nice? I’m still thinking of redecorating (I should probably say decorating only because it is really bare) the whole room. I think the whole house needs painting, outside and inside!!!

So we have had January, February, March, April and May blocks… June is my month and my block will be shown this week on the Modern Quilt Guild of Ireland’s blog. I designed it back in January, after many sketches and checking out many of my quilting books and magazines. At the end I opted to design my own one inspired on a scrappy quilt I saw while browsing Google Images for modern quilts and some photos of Supernova stars from an astronomy book that lays around the house.

It is quite different from all the blocks that have been made up until now, in that it doesn’t really “say” anything on its own, because it is part of the bigger picture that makes the quilt. I’ve been worrying a bit about it, especially after seeing that every block was much more unique and pretty straight forward when it came to read instructions. Let’s see how it goes… I hope they find it interesting somehow!

Oh yes, I did mention winnings on my post title, didn’t I? I’m so happy to say that I was lucky during the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway this year! I haven’t won a giveaway for a while and I was thrilled when I received an email from The Crafty Kitty telling me I had won one of her prizes: a FQ bundle of  Mod Basics Organic Cotton fabric in yellow. I LOVE this pastel yellow, the elephants are so cute and the dots are so lovely.

(photo from The Crafty Kitty)

I think I know how I am going to use some of these already. At the moment I am trying to experiment with different designs of zippered bags and pouches, combining linen and embroidery, and I think this organic fabric will be a perfect match for my Spanish linen.

The other giveaway I won is a set of 12 small spools of Aurifil thread! Although I didn’t participate by entering a quilt at the Blogger’s Quilt Festival that Amy organizes every year (I did in the past and blogged about it here), I wrote a comment which was randomly chosen to win one of a few different prizes. What a nice surprise I had yesterday when I received the news from Amy. I’m quite excited to try this famous cotton Aurifil thread. Yep, believe it or not, I still haven’t tried it yet, one reason being that I have so many other thread spools already… But I must say that a super generous crafty colleague gave me a few polyester Aurifil and I really like it. I am really looking forward to receive it!

And that’s all for this week. I am still working on my Summer Fair stock, I tackled some tin whistle cases already and more quilled cards. I don’t know if I’ll be able to meet my goal for the weekend as I am juggling it with my daytime (and night time sometimes) job and the kids…  oh, time time time, where can I buy more of it???

I have great week!