A Parade of Bee Blocks... and November's Reveal

I have accumulated several blocks that needed to find their way

back to the hive!

I was a busy bee trying to catch up on my blocks last week.
I hope you all forgive me for being so sporadic.

The good news is that you get to see a bunch of 
our bee blocks all at once!!!

Starting here with Amy's block! 

This one was a wee bit challenging for me... and I did a little

miscalculation at one point in the cutting. 

Amy bailed me out and sent me another piece of the background fabric to get me back

on track!

I finally got it finished!

Yeah!

This one is April's block. 

An original design! 

She is so smart to figure this out!

I hope I made mine right. The fabrics are so fun...

I love seeing the other finished blocks being posted

of hers!

The next block was for the alphabet quilt that Abby 

chose as her Bees Knees project.

I thought this was such a great idea and wished that

I would have thought of it for a group project here.

I present:The letter M!

But really, this was too easy, and I wish I would have

another letter to do. If we each would have had two letters...

Abby would be nearly finished with the alphabet!

Moving on...

I have the letter "T"

Oh my gosh! I love these fabrics! Denyse Schmidt

fabrics are always a favorite of mine!

I can't wait to see this quilt get put together!

(no pressure Calli)

This is Cynthia's block. 

Another super fun idea... to use a block from 

the Farm Girl Vintage book.

Not surprisingly, we all had a copy of that!

I still need to make that block for my sampler...

so I am going to go ahead and make another one to send

to Cynthia while I'm at it.

Now, Sherri's block

was another fun one.

I didn't jump on board the HST sampler craze when

it was going on. Not that I didn't save all my 

bonus HST's... I have a nice collection now...

maybe getting to make this one for Sherri will

give me the little nudge I need to start playing with those

cute little bonus squares on the design board!

I also wanted to show you....

something that makes me smile when I look at it...

Do you remember making these blocks for me?

I love this quilt so much!
Thank you all for helping me make it! 

I had a couple missing blocks but I went ahead and finished putting

this one together! I thought that when the other blocks come back I will just

make them into matching pillows!

Now, I am caught up.

I have mailed all your blocks (shown above) out

to you beautiful people, so watch for them in your mail box!

Along with the returning blocks I have added my project for

November!

(I have mailed the fabrics for this project out now to everyone)

(photo borrowed from Red Pepper blog)

This is the project I have picked from Red Pepper Quilts.

She made this into a gorgeous quilt.

I fell in love with it the moment I saw it on Pinterest!

There is a great tutorial on her blog.

After laying out my squares...

I made my block into sections.

Then I sewed the sections together.

Like this.

Here is what the block looks like set with the alternate block.
Don't worry...
I will be making those!


(photo borrowed from Red Pepper blog)

I am super excited to see this one come together! I hope you have fun with it!

*I added a couple extra squares so you can pick
what you like best in the scrappy corner sections of the block.
 *Off white/white thread is fine to use.
* All the fabric you need is in the block kit. 
* You should have enough fabric to work with. I don't need any leftovers returned to me.

I am on instagram: Sinta or pink pincushion will get you there!
My blog link is here.

One more thing...
I have a question for you to answer when you post my finished block.

I have a large family but I don't share a whole lot about family life.
Here is the challenge...
share anything about  me or my family that I have posted about on my blog or IG...
but the catch is... there can't be any repeats in the answers.

October Spotlight

Let’s get to know Sherri!

Sherri is married and the mother of 4 children. She lives in Logandale, Nevada with her husband. She attended Brigham Young University and received a Bachelor of Arts in English from UNLV in 1989; she currently teaches English part-time at a local community college campus. She tries to spend as much of her free time as possible sewing, quilting, and writing about her creative journey.

Inspired by a rich family heritage of generations of women who love and loved sewing and creating, Sherri also loves to sew and quilt. She has the most magical memories of homemade gifts from her Mom, Aunt, Grandmother, and great-grandmother and began to sew on her own with a sewing machine at age 10. While a patchwork pillow was her first project with a sewing machine, she began sewing many of her own clothes during high school; as a college student and young mom she sewed prom and wedding attire for others. In the early 1990’s, inspired and taught by her grandmother, she began her quilting journey.

Just a few short years ago she discovered quilt blogs and the amazing on-line community of quilting and inspiration. Through blogging about creating she has come to love designing and sharing this wonderful art. She has been publishing her designs in magazines and books since 2011; her first book, A Quilting Life: Creating a Handmade Home was published in March 2013 by C&T Publishing; her second book, Fresh Family Traditions: 18 Heirloom Quilts for a New Generation was released in the spring of 2014 and is also published by C&T. Recently she has been able to continue her quilting journey designing fabric for Moda with her daughter, Chelsi Stratton. Their first collection, “Bright Sun” ships at the end of October 2015, and their second collection, “Valley” will ship in April of 2016. She continues to blog about her quilting life at www.aquiltinglife.com

Isn’t her studio just to die for! I love having a sneak peek of sewing spaces and her’s is quite delicious.

I also visited her blog and if you haven’t visited yet you need to check out her 1930’s Farmer Wive blocks. They are all the rage right now and if you haven’t jumped on the band wagon it’s a must!

And some of her favorite cookbooks are from Our Best Bites! That's another website that you must check out for fun yummy fall recipes!

Here are some of my favorites:

Apple Pie Filling for Canning or Freezing  |  Caramel Pecan Pie  |  Homemade Soft Pretzels
Overnight Baked French Toast

Happy Sewing!

Shari

Block for Sherri

Wow, I can't believe how fast this month is wrapping up! I love October and we are half way through it! I even loved getting Sherri's material in the mail and loved the block she chose for me. This quilt is going to scrappy-happy epic!

It's so bright and fun! And I love love my pinbowl from Pleasant Home! I always use this and I feel like I need to get a few more colors. You can't have too many pin bowls can you?

I know Sherri has been busy getting ready for quilt market, so I thought I would pipe in and say one of my favorite tools for quilting is pin bowls like these to hold those pins as you sew. What is your favorite quilting tool?

XOXO,

Shari

Sherri's October Bee Block

I had a lot of fun looking through my Bonnie and Camille fabrics to add to the fabrics that Sherri sent me. I think I'm going to have to eventually get it together and make a sampler quilt using what Bonnie and Camille fabric I've collected over the years. It's a shame that it's just been hiding in drawers and stashed on shelves. It's such great fabric.

Here's a picture of the Quilt BLOCK sewn up in the pattern layout that Sherri sent to me. I can't wait to see the blocks everyone else has sewn.

Thanks Sherri!! Good Luck at Quilt Market!!

October Bee Blocks

Hello everyone, and happy October! I'm running behind on practically everything right now, but I was super happy to get my block fabrics in the mail for you all today! If you're new here, my name is Sherri McConnell, and I blog at A Quilting Life. I'm an avid quilter and fabric lover, and I love the creativity and inspiration that comes with working on projects with other quilters!

So...pictured above are some scrappy blocks I started a couple of years ago. I have a whole bunch more I've been wanting to make, but I just haven't been able to get to them. So what I did was to send you some of my hst's from my Bonnie and Camille fabric hst stash. I also sent a diagram of the block for you to make. There are only 12 hst's included in your packet, so you'll need to make 4 more. 

I've included the 3" x 3" background squares and some B&C squares for the blocks...BUT...I would love it if you could add the 4 B&C squares to your stash and use 4 different Bonnie & Camille fabrics you have on hand. This will add some more to my scrappy mix! If you don't have any Bonnie & Camille fabrics to trade, that's okay...just use what I sent. My only requirement is that you use my background fabric (Moda Bella 9900 97) and Bonnie and Camille prints for the remaining squares.

The half square triangles should be 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" (2" finished), and the blocks will be 8 1/2"  x 8 1/2" (8" finished).
 

Some of the copies I sent were a little light, so I shaded in the print fabric areas where I thought you might not be able to see it well. Just email me if you have any questions.

Finally...I'd love the extra half-square triangles you get if you are willing to send them. I still have six more blocks to make, and it would be super if I could have the four left overs from everyone (use this method to make two half square triangles from each pair of squares).

I look forward to helping all of you created fun projects this year...and a HUGE thank you to Shari for taking over as our Bee Leader...I sure appreciate her organization in getting everything going!

Have a great weekend everyone! 

Sherri