Bee Quilt for Baby Robin

I can finally share my latest baby quilt! This is yet another quilt, I made with the help of the lovely ladies of the Quilty Circle of Bees. 

The block we sewed is called the 'Rocky Mountain Puzzle' block and I picked turquoise, pink and curry/chartreuse as the main colours and white and black/white fabrics for the background. It's always a nice surprise when you open the envelopes from your bee mates and see what blocks they made since we sew with our own fabrics. It gives the quilt such a great variety of different fabrics without looking completely wild and uncoordinated.

I made three blocks, my bee mates made all the other ones. I loved how it turned out, it's such a happy and fresh looking quilt! 

For the binding I used left over strips from a backing of another quilt. This print has large dots, so the binding appears to be stripy - and I like that a lot. As always with baby quilts, I sew the binding on by machine for extra durability. 

For the backing I used my favourite wide screen cross-hatch fabric in pink. In the bottom right corner is a label, made from one HST. 

This quilt was sent earlier this week to Robin and her parents, who live in Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Yesterday I received such sweet photos from Robin with the quilt... seriously, sewing a baby quilt is just the best! 

The quilt measures about 48" (123cm) square.

Thank you to me bee mates Melanie, Allison, Madga and Saadia for making the blocks! 

Bee Quilt - Trip Todd

I wasn't in the mood for any sewing during the first weeks of lock down of the Coronavirus Pandemic earlier this year. . 

One day I just took the bee blocks from last year out and put them on the design wall. I liked it so much that I started to arrange them and fill in the gaps. 

I specifically picked these blocks for a toddler quilt. I used blues in different shades, greys and oranges. The main focus was on solids with just a few prints to add interest.  This is the selection:

The blocks are pieced using a method by Debbie of A Quilter's Table called 'wedge slabs' and you can find it here. 

Since a very long time I used my old sewing machine to quilt wavy lines from the selection of stitches. I wanted something that is very stable and can resist the play of not one toddler, not two, no, three toddlers! Born all at ones - yes, triplets! All boys! I called the quilt 'Trip Todd' - short cut for Triplet Toddler. 

I'm so happy to give them this quilt knowing it gets used and loved makes me very happy! 

For the back I used one of my favourite cross hatch fabrics in blue and the binding is a bright orange to give the quilt a nice frame. I applied this binding by machine for extra durability - three boys, you know. 

Thank you to my lovely bee mates from the 'Quilty Circle of Bees' who made those lovely bee blocks: 

Christiane, Friederike, Magda, Melanie. 

2019 quilty goals

A year end recap is always good to define new goals, so without further ado here comes:

1. Christmas quilt 'December'

I know Christmas is just over but I'm in a flow to finishing the quilt top and I hope to have this done within this week. And then to quilt it, I'm debating whether to use a fleece back or not. I'll decide once the top is finished!

2. 'Playground'

This quilt was on my to-do-list already last year, I'm eager though to finish it now! I still love those colours!!

3. Pantone Quilt Challenge

Hm, I have no idea what to do with this colour yet or even with what other colour to combine it, but hey, it wouldn't be a challenge if it would be easy. So bring on the Pantone Quilt Challenge, I'm game!

4. Volta

Originally designed for the Two-Colour- Quilt Challenge for 2019 QuiltCon this quilt did not happen. I have the top finished... and I don't like it. I like the design but not the colours I picked, so I'll give that another try.

5. Biene's adventure quilt

Here are the blocks I already have and I'm planning to add a lot more this year. I am documenting adventures we do with our dog Biene and it's so much fun.
I'm trying to achieve a cohesive design with similar colours e.g. blue, green, turquoise and orange combined with low volume fabrics. I have no idea how the final layout will look but I'll decide that once I have all blocks together.

6. Bee quilt

Here's all the blocks I received and made last year and I'm planning on doing a baby quilt from it. It just is unfortunate that loads of boys were born in my circle of friends in 2018 where this would be more suitable for a girl, but anyhow, who knows what 2019 brings!

7. Clothing

Yes, you read right. I will make my own clothing this year! I have been frustrated by fashion and what's on offer in the shops since a long time and that these clothes either don't fit me or I don't like them, mostly it's a combination of both. I'm not sure if I will show clothing here since this is a quilt blog but I thought I include it anyway. New adventures are good! I have actually tried clothing with my normal sewing machine before and it was very disappointing, so this beauty has moved in and it's a dream to sew with! I have already sewn a few things and I'm super happy! A serger is really what makes sewing clothes fun and fast!

And for anything else I just see what happens.
I will not go to QuiltCon this year, but I'm planning on going to Nadelwelt in Karlsruhe here in Germany in May.
I'm looking forward to the new year, I'm planning on taking it slow though. I'll just do whatever feels right. Happy New Year everyone!

My Bee blocks for February/ March

It's always my turn at the beginning of the year to pick a quilt block for my 'Quilty Circle of Bees'. I had my eyes peeled at the 'Rocky Mountain Puzzle' block for quite some time. It's a very traditional block but with a modern colour palette I picture a very beautiful quilt. Like this one, or this.

I have a thing for chartreuse/ mustard and have gathered quite a lot of fabric in that colour. I paired it off with some light turquoise and rose.

As a background I chose a variety of black/ white prints. I like the lively appearance, but I hope it won't look too busy. I might add some solid white and use white sashing. I'll decide once all bee blocks have arrived.

The pattern can be found for free here. I opted for the 12.5" block size, there are three different sizes available.

I don't really have a plan yet what I'll do with the finished quilt. I might give it to charity where someone is in need of a cuddly quilt. Yeah, that's sounds good.

It was so nice to work with those colours during these grey, dark and cold winter days!

Bee Blocks for Vicky

I love my Quilty Circle of Bees! We are such a diverse little group of quilters who always manage to get me out of my comfort zone.

Either by the sewing technique used (in two years we had everything from paper piecing, curved blocks, improv and precise piecing.. hm, just noticed there wasn't any applique yet, I'm counting on Allison on that one!) or by the fabric selection.

Vicky was our queen bee for October/ November and she picked a paper pieced version of a courthouse step block.

The colour scheme was caramel, tangerine, light blue and purple. I didn't think that would go together but the colours look so good!

The great thing about my Bee is that we sew with our own fabrics. In the blocks I receive for my quilts there is just such a great variety on colours and fabrics because so far my fellow bee mates always nailed it!

Vicky's request was to have a white solid square as the center square and then play around and don't stick with the traditional layout.

We were also only to use four different fabrics in one block and repeat the fabric choice in the next block with only little alteration.

By doing that all the blocks get a very cohesive look. This quilt will be so good, I really can't wait to see this finished!

Wonky Quarter Log Cabin Boy Quilt

I can finally show my second finished Bee Quilt today:

I couldn't be happier with this quilt, my bee mates did a fantastic job with their beautiful blocks! I opted for an improv and wonky quarter log cabin block and since this is a quilt for a boy I asked for 'boyish' fabrics with very graphic prints and solid white.

The colour scheme was navy and light blue, mustard/ curry and white. You can read more about that here. It's always a nice surprise when you open the envelopes from your bee mates and see what blocks they made since we sew with our own fabrics. It gives the quilt such a great variety of different fabrics without looking completely wild and uncoordinated.

For the back of the quilt I simply opted for cross hatch fabrics and a white stripe in the middle. The quilt measures 1.20 x 1.50m (47x59"), the individual blocks are 12.5"sq.

We all followed a tutorial by Debbie of A Quilter's Table to create the wonky blocks. Wonky and Improv can be challenging for some quilters so my bee mate Melanie wrote a blog post on how to 'plan' your improv blocks, so if you feel a little intimidated by improv go and check this out!

It was the first quilt I quilted with my new Juki. I opted for free motion interlinking and random rectangles, which I thought go very well with the wonky blocks. The quilting turned out so beautiful and is no comparison to what I previously was able to do with my old machine. What you can't see on the photo above is that I also got the large extension table. With that you can turn your machine 90degress so you almost have a long arm feeling, with the only difference that you still need to move the quilt under the machine and not the other way round as you would with a long arm.

Here's a close-up of the quilting at the back of the quilt. I used Aurifil 40wt in white and it works so well with all the different colours.

I opted for a solid white binding. I've done that a couple of times with quilts where there is a lot of solid white and I think it gives the quilt a nice, light frame and lets the blocks stand out.

Again, thanks to my fellow bees of the Quilty Circle of Bees for another really lovely quilt. This will be a gift for a friend of mine and her little boy. Can't wait to see her face, she has no clue that this is for her and her little man!

Linking this to the Blogger's Quilt Festival hosted by Amy Ellis.
and Let's Bee Social at 'Sew Fresh Quilts'

Cosy Comfort - My first finished Bee Quilt

My first ever Bee Quilt is finished!

The blocks were already made as I was Queen Bee in January/ February 2016 and it took me until now (over a year later... aham) to finally get it finished.

I picked the beautiful Amsterdam quilt block designed by Holly DeGroot for Cloud9 Fabrics and let my Bees do what they wanted. Here is the free download link for the pattern.

I added sashing in low volume fabrics, quilted in loopy loops with beautiful Aurifil 40wt in colour '2600 Dove', which always works so well when you have lots of different colours in a quilt.  And I finished the quilt with this quirky orange/ green stripy binding.

For the back I opted for a very colourful fabric with floral prints. I had asked my Bees at the time to include a white 3" square block with their names on it. I framed each of the name blocks in a different solid colour and added it in the back of the quilt.

I love this quilt so much and will keep it. My aim is though to give all other bee quilts away, either to friends or to charity. But this very first one is a keeper!

Thank you so much, Quilty Circle of  Bees, for all your beautiful blocks!
 Alison, Claudia, Magda, Melanie and Yara. 

 

The quilt finishes at 1,26 x 1,80m (50 x 70") and has the perfect lap size.