Under the wire

Thank goodness February had that extra day or I wouldn't have finished my Cocorico block for the month!

Muriel chose Pippi as her theme. I remember growing up with Pippi Longstocking stories and films so this was a fun trip down memory lane.

When I think of Pippi, it's always about her hair and her stripey socks. Too chicken to even attempt her face, I settled on the stocking feet. I like the bold graphic quality of this block, though it was a bit of a bear to construct. Thankfully, Muriel likes it - and that's the most important part of all!

A Snow Globe is Born

Thanks goodness for the PMQG all day sew this past weekend. I actually completed a quilt top and worked on my latest paper pieced block. A snow globe for Melinda!

Melinda is one of my new friends over in the Cocorico bee on flickr. Her theme was "Vintage Christmas". I remember collecting snow globes as a child. I just loved shaking them up and watching the sparkley snow fall down over the scene!

This block was lots of fun to work on, though in the interest of full disclosure I have to admit to spending a bit of quality time with my seam ripper. There are a couple of places that I wish I had done a little differently but overall, I think it turned out okay.

Here's a picture with a ruler in it to give you an idea of the scale. Tiny! Curved piecing still makes me very nervous, so I made the snow globe and will applique that onto the background fabric.

And that quilt top I finished? Hopefully, I can get that basted and quilted up in the next week or so. It all depends on the kids and schedules and life.

Speaking of which.... this past weekend the whole family went to the Jingle Bell Run/Walk kick-off party and it was a blast. We got to speak about our family's experience with Owen and his juvenile arthritis. And Owen even got up in front of about 350 people and told a joke. I'm so proud of him! If you'd like to help him reach his goal, just follow the link on the top right of the blog.

Cocorico ~ Krista's Block

November is Krista's month over in the Cocorico paper piecing bee on flickr. She chose "Hit the Slopes" as her theme because her whole family enjoys winter sports and skiing. One of her inspiration photos was a ski boot, so I tried to tackle that.

I really enjoyed designing this block and figuring out how to get that typical ski boot look with the leg portion leaning forward. I'm a little worried that the fabric choices have made the boot a little busier than I would have preferred, but Krista likes it and that's what's most important!

If you are interested in trying paper piecing or want a cute winter pattern to sew up, check out Kerry's very first PDF pattern for sale! Kerry's work is impeccable and I just know that the same amount of thought and care that she puts into her sewing has been put into this pattern. I just purchased mine and can't wait to stitch a few up. And she promises more patterns to come.

Looking forward to beginning a new quilt this weekend at our guild's all day sew. What are you working on?

A bee block for Annabel

For her month's theme in Cocorico, Annabel wanted blocks made with an orchard theme. After thinking about the theme for awhile and coming up with a couple of different possibilities, I settled on making a bee.

I love bees. I also have an allergic reaction to their sting so I have to be careful! But I really think they're amazing - their highly organized social structure and their efficiency at caring for their hive, working together, and making delicious honey. Of course, they also play a very important part in the life of an orchard because they pollinate the tree blossoms to help make yummy fruit for us to enjoy.

My inspiration illustration is above right. From that picture I made a larger more simplified drawing of the bee on graph paper. Once I worked on the drawing for awhile,I realized a few things:

If I tried to paper piece the legs I would probably go insane.

I needed to slightly shorten the body of the bee so it would look less like a wasp.

This was going to be hard.

Thanks to a PMQG all day sew, I had a lot of uninterrupted time to work on this block and this is what I have so far! Instead of piecing in the legs I'll be thread sketching them with black thread. And I'll embroider the antennae on as well. I'm completely nervous that I'll screw this part up and ruin the work I've already done!

This is just a more detailed look at the bee. There are a few "oops" moments but overall I'm really happy with how this block turned out. I'm especially fond of the beehive print on the bee's body!

Annabel wants to make placemats with her blocks, so I hope no one minds eating their meal with a giant insect on their mat!

Paper Piecing is a Puzzle

As you already know, I am a huuuuuge fan of the mad piecing skills of the ladies over in the Ringo Pie group on flickr. I stalk the group and am completely amazed at everything they do.

Recently, I was invited to participate in cocorico, another paper piecing bee and I am both excited and nervous!

You see, while I am a huge fan of this type of patchwork, I haven't really done any of it myself. The only paper piecing I've done is the circle of geese block and it was really hard to wrap my brain around the whole concept.

But I accepted the invitation because I am so completely inspired by the other members and don't want to miss this chance to learn more and push myself to develop this skill.

July and August are practice months so I decided to jump right in and draft my very first piecing pattern all by myself - a dragonfly!

Let me tell you, when I finished this block I felt like a total rock star! Something really clicked while working on the pattern and sewing it up wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. There are some little oops places but nothing too bad for a first try. The hardest part for me was definitely figuring out the pattern. I think looking at it and figuring out the puzzle of how to piece it really helped my brain understand this technique in a new way.

There is still an amazing amount to learn but I'm excited to see how this bee develops over the next year.

Do you do paper piecing? Any tips or tricks?

Random Stuff

We had a lovely Independence Day here in our corner of the world. The weather was beautiful and the kids were totally into the holiday this year - as seen in Miss B's festive outfit.

A large part of our afternoon was spent launching a soda bottle rocket in the yard. Here's our little scientist getting everything set up.

Owen made this awesome contraption at a weird science party last spring. It has been a HUGE hit. A 2 liter soda bottle is outfitted with fins and a nose cone. The cap is replaced with a cork and one of those needle thingys used to inflate sports balls. You put a little bit of water into the bottle, jam in the cork,and then use a bike tire pump to inject air in through the needle. Aaaaaand BLASTOFF!

This was the first year we let the kids stay up for fireworks. Bailey was scared of all the noise but Owen was thrilled. He loved the sparklers, snakes, pop-its, and fountains.

And there has been some mild craftiness happening around here as well. I finished up my last block for Bee Vintage. It's been a lot of fun participating in my first online quilting bee. I'm sure I'll do more once summer is over and life gets back to a somewhat more predictable routine (with a lot less sunshine). Right now it's just so lovely to hang out with the kids and soak up the summertime.

I also made a block for the Tokyo Quilt Festival, which you can read more about here.

This block will be part of the Partnership Quilts made up of blocks from people all around the world! The quilts will then be donated to charity. This year's theme is squares and triangles. Don't look too closely because there are a lot of points that aren't so pointy and at least one corner that is all wackadoo. But I still like it and had fun playing with tiny half square triangles. The entire block measures 9" x 9" so each of those triangle blocks are just one inch square.

And apparently I was so excited about this block I took a picture before I even squared it up and trimmed the edges. Doh!

February Bee Block

I suppose it was only a matter of time...

My very first dresden. It's a little bit of a fussy block but not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. Heather asked for blocks made using this tutorial from Elizabeth at Oh, Frannson. It's a nice large block (16.5") so the pieces don't get too fiddly.

And I really do like how it shows off the various bits of vintage goodness. Because the block is so large I'm contemplating making one to finish into a pillow, maybe with some sweet little Japanese prints. Hmmm????

Bee blocks for (ahem) November

These are my bee blocks for Bee Vintage. Yes, for November. Total slacker.

The pattern is called Lady of the Lake and while I think it's lovely now that it's done I think I would go insane if I made a whole quilt with this block! one thing is for sure - I learned a lot about half square triangles while making these.

If you're new to HST there are a couple of tricks that helped as I assembled these blocks:

Measure slightly larger (I rounded up from 2-7/8" to 3" for the small squares) and then trim to square after sewing the HST. Seriously, this is what saved me.

Use a scant 1/4" seam. And go slow enough to maintain that seam allowance. (This was a little bit hard for me because I like to sew fast!)

Again, this bee has been a wonderful experience because I'm getting the chance to learn a LOT about making some more traditional quilt blocks and blocks I wouldn't necessarily choose for myself. It has really expanded my skills at piecing and pushed me to try new techniques.

Bee Block

Here is my October block for Bee Vintage:

My first ever wonky/liberated star. So much fun to make. I know I'll be doing more of these.

And I really REALLY love the different bright vintage sheets prints I used in this one. Another great thing about this block is that we were asked to use a white tone on tone print for the background and I found that piecing the vintage sheets with a cotton fabric made my machine much less likely to try to "eat" the sheets (pushing them down into the stitch plate on my machine). Nice little discovery!

September Bee Block

Better late than never . Here are the blocks I made for September in Bee Vintage. A nice little churn dash (which I had never made before).

I really like how this one turned out. It doesn't hurt that the yellow floral is one of my all-time favorite vintage sheet prints. Jennifer wanted two blocks and said straight or wonky was fine so I made one of each.

So, I really liked the first one. The straight one. But the wonkified one....not so much.

There's not enough contrast between the background and the feature fabric. And I think it would have looked better if there were more contrast in size between the half square triangles and the straight side pieces. So....not so thrilled with the result but I learned a lot and thankfully, Jennifer loves both of them!

This month we're doing liberated stars, another one I've been wanting to try!