Brenda's Big Bee Birthday Bee finished!

Double click on photo to see details.

More than three years ago,

I asked my blogging and local quilting friends to make me a B.

A big one, or at least a capital one.

Many of you did this for me,

to celebrate my big (50th) birthday.

Double click on photo to see details.

Today, on my 53rd birthday,

I can finally show you what I did with those big Bs.

After three years of collecting, musing, pondering, and puzzling,

I got it together.

Thanks to all of you who sent me a B

and then waited patiently for me to do something with it.

It's a beauty in its variety of Bs and its scrappiness.

I pieced it in three vertical panels

and then free motioned different motifs in each letter block

and joined them together

and then bound it in a hot pink Kaffe print.

Double click on photo to see details.

I learned a lot from making this quilt.

I learned about the generosity of bloggers, who sent me a birthday B

and often a card or note with birthday wishes.

I learned that you are all very creative and competent.

And I also learned that size matters.

Although I love the variety and sizes of the letters,

next time I will include a maximum size.

Thanks again for helping me make the B quilt!

It's been a blast!

I'm linking up with  GIFF, Sarah, and Amanda.

A b-hive of activity

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I still haven't finished my big birthday quilt.

I appreciate all the B blocks you sent me

for Brenda's Big B Birthday Bee,

but I got stalled on how to put them together.

Here they are partly put together.

So today on Canadian Thanksgiving,

I decided to be thankful for all my quilting friends close by

and in blogland,

and decided to figure out the puzzle.

Here's the layout I envisioned at the beginning of the day. 

I had five large Bs I intended for the back.

As my day progressed, I realized I could get them all on the front.

I unpicked some of the sections, cut down the borders on some blocks

eliminated a purple block I had made,

and squeezed them all in.

 

Except for that red and purple one on top of this photo.

Somehow, that block from my friend Y. got overlooked.

So I unpicked that filler on the top right

and squeezed it in right on the top.

 

Here's the whole thing, now sewn into three long sections.

It measures about 60 by 64.

 

I had thought I would quilt this in sections,

to facilitate free motion quilting

and make it less bulky to quilt.

 

But I only have a large piece of batting on hand

and I'm having difficulty figuring out the backing.

 

So I'm leaving it for today

and hope some of you might venture an opinion.

 

I haven't decided whether or not to make it more of a rectangle

with top and bottom borders.

 

I'm planning for this to be my nap quilt,

so the current size is fine with me.

I'm a winner and so are three of you!

Mr. Random Teenager choose the winners for my blogiversary giveway:

Susan and Penny each won a zippy bag made from word fabrics

and filled with a 12-pack of hand dyed charms cut from my stash.

They're all  prints or white on white fabrics

that I handdyed,

except for the pink one at the right, which I got in a scrap exchange.

I hope you have fun with them.

Deborah won the little sewing machine quilt.

She's a Canadian and a blog lurker.

Thanks to everyone for entering and for making the past four years fun.

I've emailed the winners.

Winning is always fun, and this week the mail carrier delivered four Kaffe fat quarters

that I won in Karen's giveaway at the Selvage Blog.

Thanks so much!

And then I got this B for my birthday quilt

and Dutch wax prints scraps from Kathy.

a member of my guild.

The same day, my friend Cheryl gave me the leftovers

from her hand dyed triangle quilt.

Look at this bunch of triangles in yummy colours.

Here's the bits she's cut off her quilt to square it up.

Thanks and thanks!

Bags, blocks and more blocks

I had a little sewing frenzy here last week, and finished a set of bags from

Guatemalan fabric for a fundraiser. The one at the left is a tote with 8 pockets (2 inside)

with a matching market bag.

Here they are again, modeled by my DS1. All of them sold.

Here he is again, with a shoulder/messenger style bag, made from a handwoven table runner.

With the flap opened. This was intended for the same fundraiser.

I also whipped up some Basics BOM for Victoria and her quilt drive.

I find it's too pricey to mail a whole quilt, but I can manage a few blocks.

These are the colourwash strips I'm getting from the 15 minutes play bee.

September is my month to get the blocks. These are about half of them.

This week I received one last B in the mail for my Big Bee Birthday quilt, this one from Nancy Near Philadelphia. T'hanks so much.

And one more shot of tea cozies and hot pads. I made one set from the calendar towel, and the other from the Kaffe strips I cut for another set of blocks. If you look closely at the colour wash quilt, you'll see some in there. I've been hoarding those Kaffe prints, but once I have scraps, I play and play and play with them. Really, I should just cut up my yardage into little bits instead of storing it in my cupboard.

And if that isn't enough, I should show you a picture of my newly organized sewing space, but I've already messed it up. I did move three bags of scraps and strings out it to pass on to my quilt group tonight, as well as a pile of mile-a-minute blocks.

Bathroom and hallway quilting

Finally, pictures of different quilts. After five years of working on it (or not working on it, but feeling guilty about it) my T quilt is finally on the wall it was intended for. This skinny tall wall on the second floor landing is now decorated with a skinny tall quilt. I'm liking it against the yellow-gold paint, and I admire it every time I walk by it. My oldest son's first response was wondering where the poster went that used to be on the landing (the temporary decoration until the quilt was done, but it took me so long the temporary became permanent in his mind.)

And here's another quilt up in a permanent way: my To Be quilt is hanging in the bathroom, where it has caused some amusement among houseguests. Since I'm the only one who ever takes a bath in this room (everyone else showers in the other bathroom, if you must know), I figure it's fairly safe from splashes. Plus it adds some splash to the newly repainted walls once held hostage to Laura Ashley-style wallpaper. (nothing against Laura, I just don't like busy wallpaper of any type.)

Here's a closer look at the unmatched points and minimal hand quilting of the T-quilt. I had good intentions of doing dense stippling on it, but just got tired of the whole thing and I had moved on to other quilt relationships. Sometimes done is better than perfect UFO.

Here's A different thing with the "altogether" moved to the right. I'm glad I took the seam ripper to it. See the post below for a comparison.

letters and bees

This is a little wall quilt or door name plate for a friend who was given the title of Honoured Elder (can you read it?) by the aboriginal community. I used batiks and hand dyes for the letters and spinning stars (are they friendship stars?) and a mottled black for background. These are small letters, most under two inches each. I'm thinking of using a scrappy binding in the coloured fabrics.

The Two Be quilt, completely finished, for Tonya's summer class. I finished it weeks ago, but hadn't posted a completed picture.

More quilt show treats

Here's the other place where my quilt was hanging beside Joyce's work. Mine is the be and bee quilt on the bottom left, and hers is the larger one on the right. Scroll down two posts to see the other two that found themselves together at the Barnswallow's show last weekend. My son David posed with me beside his class string river quilt, lower right. This is made by 25 children in grades four, five and six, with my help. Notice David is a well-trained quilt show enthusiast, wearing his white glove. This show was the 20th annual by the Barnswallows, and David has been to almost half of them, and had his class quilts exhibited at three or four shows. He's an old pro at quilt shows at only age 11 (yes, he's tall for his age.)

Scrappy liberated stars

I've been back to my box of two inch squares to make this scrappy stars quilt for a favourite teacher. I'm using busy calicos and other "uglies" which made it over to me from mom's stash, and I'm aiming for muted colours so the stars pop. Here's a close-up of a star, using the liberated method a la Gwen Marston.
This is meant to be a throw size, with some words around the border, and backed with flannelette so she can cuddle with it after a hard day of school. The squares are finishing at 9.5 inches.

I've layered and pinned my To Be quilt, and I'll be quilting freehand fans on it this weekend.

The B's have it

Here's more progress on the to be quilt. I'm thinking about borders now, or maybe I'm done. I can't decide.

more bees

These are all the b's and be's and bees on my wall.
This is what's sewn together so far. It's fun making letters, a bit more tedious getting them all to fit together.

I'm overrun with letters and words

I've been sewing letters and words like a woman possessed...by letters and words. Yesterday I added some verbs to my word quilt made from word fabric. Here's what's on my desigh wall: my word project and my 2 B project. I've hit a wall with the bees and b's and be's. I think I've made enough, but now I don't know what to do with them.
I've used white and black backgrounds for the letters, plus pink floral for the bumble bees. The next challenge will be to pull it all together somehow. Or maybe I just keep making letters.

Be and bee and b

I've been making variations on "B" over the weekend for Tonya's summer class. She suggested putting a bumble bee or two in the quilt, so here's my first attempt.

The purpose of this class is to aim for repetition and variety within the repetition. I seem to be stuck in only a couple of ways in making the letters, so I'm working on that.

My B quilt

I've decided to be existential in my free piecing for Tonya's summer class and ask the question:

I'm going to play with variations of this: Two Bs, two bees, too B, to bee. My husband's name also starts with B, so it has another layer of meaning.