Next Up: Marilyn!

I just secured childcare for Thursday night & I'm really looking forward to the program.  Marilyn is getting everything ready for her turn in the bee.  Can't wait to see what she's cooking up! :)

Jaime's Christmas Quilt!

KCMQG August, originally uploaded by Under the Evening Star.

Did you see? I missed the meeting, but I caught this finished quilt in Flickr. It's a product of our little bee. One of my very favorites. I've started a quilt of my own like this...

A Sneak Peek of Nikki's August Blocks...

We will be making log cabin quarters in a variety of colors.  I've made kits for everyone with some fabric.  I'm going to have to miss our August meeting, but Caitlin is going to pass these out for me.

If you aren't planning on making it to the meeting, let me know and I'll drop them in the mail.  Thanks!

Nikki

Last one for Round 2

This month will be Alicia's turn.  She joined our bee halfway through the year to replace a departing member.

I'm hopeful that this week I will have time to make some calls & fill up Round 3 of the KC Scrappy Bee... More info to come on that.

Thanks for your patience!

Summer In The Park blocks for Denise!

April Blocks for Denise!

After just beating the March block deadline, I decided to get an early start on Denise's blocks.

I love how these turned out - thanks for a fun block, Denise!

I definitely see a Summer in the Park quilt in my future!

March Blocks for Beth!

Whew!  I finished these blocks for Beth in the nick of time!  I started working on them at the retreat, but then I ran into some "technical difficulty".  Whenever that happens, I set the project aside to figure out another day.

These blocks look simple, but for me - an improvisationally-challenged type of quilter, they were not.  I like to follow a process...and repeat it over and over until I'm done.  Usually I cut, cut, cut, sew, sew, sew, press, press, press, and repeat.  Once I figured out that I had to cut, sew, press, cut, sew, press I was on my way!

Isn't it funny how such a simple change in how we approach something can make such a big difference?

I love making these scrappy blocks...these two have prints from my current favorite line, Echo.  My eggplant ovals from Art Gallery are in here, a bit of Essex Linen (Aqua and Natural) and some other choice scraps.  After seeing the lovely pile o' blocks that Beth was collecting, I cannot wait to see her finished quilt!

For Beth, from Caitlin

For Beth, from Alicia

Time To Start Talking About Round 3 Plus QOV Bonus Block

I can hardly believe it, but we're only 3 months away from the end of round 2 of the KC Scrappy Bee.  I don't know about you guys, but I've really enjoyed being a part of such a talented group.

Thanks so much for all the inspiration, support and encouragement you've all given me.  I've made some great friendships and have learned new skills.  I'm enjoying stepping out of my comfort zone from time to time.

I'd hope that you'd all like to stay in the bee for another round, but sometimes life gets in the way or we get ready to move on to other crafty groups and pursuits.  I'm willing to stay on board and manage the group for another year.

Think on it for a bit and let me know if you're in or out for another year (via email, Facebook, in person on on this thread).  Several people have expressed interest to me, so don't worry about leaving us in a bind if you'd like to pass on another round.  Current participants have an automatic invite back for the next round, so you've got a spot if you want it.  If you'd like to join us for next year, let me know what month you'd like and I'll start working on our schedule.

Quilts of Valor
Quilts of Valor is an organization that is near to my heart.  My father is a Vietnam Veteran and my grandfather served in World War II.  For those of you who are interested, I have a proposition for you:  When we first started the KC Scrappy Bee, we each made a block or two for a Quilt of Valor (quilts for wounded soldiers and vets) from a focus fabric and our stashes.  I'd love to have a month between rounds where we all made a block or two for a scrappy QOV.   What do you guys think?  I'd like to propose wonky star blocks that measure 12.5.  We could use this tutorial using patriotic colors with neutral background fabric (solids/prints or a combination of each) and perhaps a splash of a mustard or gold here and there.

To make it interesting, some of you might rather use this tutorial, which uses a 4 patch as the center of the star & finish at 6 inches.  With this tutorial, it would take 4 stars to make a 12.5 inch block.  If you choose to make these blocks, please don't sew the stars to one another.  I might want to space them out some or insert some neutral fabric blank squares here and there to make the quilt bigger.


I will take care of assembling the quilt, getting it quilted, bound, labeled, washed & awarded to a veteran.  I'll keep you all in the loop on the process.

If there are no objections, let's make the month of July be our QOV month.  This will give us a little patriotic project to do over the 4th of July.

How's that sound, everyone?


So here's our Round 3 Schedule (I will fill it in as I get responses):


July, 2012-  Quilts of Valor- Wonky Stars (Round 1, 2 and 3 Bee Members can participate- or anyone else for that matter)
August, 2012-  
September, 2012-  Marilyn B. (Taking Toni's place for a year)
October, 2012-  Tammie S.
November, 2012-  Lauren B.
December, 2012-  
January, 2013-  Nikki M.
February, 2013-
April, 2013-  Denise
May, 2013- Caitlin M.
June, 2013-Valerie K.
July, 2013-
August, 2013-

For Beth... From Nikki

, originally uploaded by nkiblueeyes.

These were one of my favorite blocks so far from all the bees I've participated in. Love the simplicity of the construction & the way we could play with the neutrals and the prints. I wish I'd had more neutrals on hand, but I had to make do. I made these over two different nights of sewing. I'm leaving them for you to trim up and I'm including some scraps for you to use for additional blocks. I didn't think I had much of that icy aqua color, but I dug around & found a nice selection.

I hope you like them! I know this will be an extra special quilt. Might make one for myself sometime.... But I'll have to stock up on neutrals first!

Late blocks for Andrea

I haven't been a very good bee mama... Just now finishing up Andrea's blocks from 2 months ago. Oy!

They were fun to make, although I like one of these more than the other two. I'm sending some scraps to go with these. Hope you like them!

Mary Anne's blocks for the KC Scrappy Bee

Mary Anne's blocks for the KC Scrappy Bee, a photo by flashlightfish on Flickr.

Sorry for the crummy background in the photo... my white foam board isn't big enough to fit all four blocks at once, and the only spot with decent natural light during the day is on the kitchen rug.

I will admit to struggling a lot with making these... I think my machine (or maybe it was just me) really had trouble with the paper. I tried pinning, not pinning, holding the paper and fabrics at various angles while sewing... it was kind of a challenge. Part of the problem, I think, is that I have a very basic Singer, and I use it on my kitchen table (which is the only place I can use it right now), so the sewing surface isn't flush with the table.

My other challenge was that I have only made a handful of quilts (four, I think?), so my scrap supply is limited, which meant pulling out various fabrics from my stash and cutting long strips. The upshot is that I now have many strips in my scrap bin! (Also, it's called the "KC Scrappy Bee," so I should've known, right?!)

I tried to incorporate a variety of values and make it as scrappy as possible... I hope I succeeded!

More Blocks For Mary Anne

For Mary Anne in the kc scrappy bee, originally uploaded by nkiblueeyes.

Since Mary Anne provided the chocolate, I decided to make her a couple extra blocks. I love these & have started setting aside bits & pieces to make my own piles of string quilts. Truly, it's one of my favorite looks.

On another note, Andrea's blocks have been hiding from me for at least 6 weeks in my sewing room. Amazingly, I finally found them last night. They were hiding on my ironing board all along. :)

Will get those finished right quick...

I got so far behind.......

My machine kept skipping stitches on this red block.  I did get it finished but then switched to a heavier thread for the blue/orange block.  It turned out fine I think.  love the colors.  Can't wait to see this quilt Steph.

I finished this improv block...in my minds eye I saw a tree in the forest with pretty fall colored leaves and then the dark ground cover of leaves and foresty things!

I then finished these colorful and vibrant tree blocks for Jaime.  Love the grunge, love the bright colors.




So I need to get Andrea's supplies so I can finish that up and Mary Anne's blocks are on the schedule this weekend.  I have found all sorts of strips laying around in my sewing room so I think I can put four of those together. 

I am in the For the Love of Solids Swap 2 and about half done with that project.   I also joined the Doll Quilt Swap 12.  Then I am done with all but the KC Scrappy Bee which I will continue to do!

I've got Christmas quilts to make for next Christmas and I need to get busy.  I'm sure there will be a few other projects thrown in too!  I am glad to be almost caught up!