Stitch Tease Star Quilt

The completion of this quilt is long overdue. This is my Stitch Tease Bee quilt from 2014, round three, of the bee.  That was the first year I joined the bee, so this is my very first bee quilt, and it is so special to me.

There are twelve of us ladies in the Stitch Tease Bee from the US, Europe, and Africa. I asked them to make two 12" star blocks - any star blocks they wanted - in a specific Design Seeds color palette. They did an amazing job, as always, and I love every block. 

I quilted this on my Juki 2010Q with my walking foot in a spiral. The back is a vintage sheet. It's so soft and cozy, and the texture from the spiral quilting makes this a great quilt to curl up with on the couch. It's about 64" x 64". This will be one of my treasures. 

Thanks to all the Stitch Tease ladies who made blocks for this quilt! 

Di - our bee mama 

Cindy

Valerie

Kari

Jennifer

Angela

Susan

Annabella

Hadley

Katy

Dianne 

Bee blocks

I haven't shared my bee blocks in so long! We just finished another round in the Stitch Tease Bee, and we're about to go again. Here are my blocks from the last few months:

My month was September, and I wanted curvy log cabin blocks in blue to make bubbles. Here are four of them them set together. Two are mine and two were from my friend, Cindy. I can't wait to put this top together!

Orange Peels for Kari

Flying Geese for Di

I also joined a new local bee, and we call ourselves the Stripper Stash Sampler Society. Don't get the wrong idea! "Stripper" comes from our love of fabric strips. We get together once a month to hang out, play games, and gamble with our scraps! Now we've added the bee, and we exchange our blocks in person every month. It's a blast. For the first round, we all picked two blocks to make every month. The queen for the following month brings a fat quarter of her focus fabric for each stripper and hands them out at the meeting. Then we have the month to add some coordinating fabric from our stash and make our two blocks for her. It's been fun to see our blocks done up in different fabric combos, and it's always exciting to see what each queen picks for fabric. These are my blocks from our first three months:

For Catherine

For Andria

For Dayna

 

Here are a few of us this month having a grand time and celebrating Andria's birthday. I'm so grateful to have a friendship with all of these fabulous ladies!

February Stitch Tease

February was another improv month for the Stitch Tease Bee. Dianne wanted Midcentury Modern blocks. Luckily, she provided an excellent Pinterest board for inspiration and great suggestions for fabric selection.

I procrastinated again with these blocks, because I was intimidated by the task set forth. Today I finally got to work and made my two blocks. I am pleased with how they turned out in the end. 

I hope Dianne likes them, and they go well with the rest of her blocks!

January Stitch Tease

I finished my January Stitch Tease Bee Blocks for Susan just in the knick of time (as usual these days).

Susan, like the rest of us, adored Di's "Not Squared" quilt, and she wanted one of her own. We were charged with making these improv blocks in jewel tones. I admit to being intimidated when anyone says "improv". Even though I usually like the result, I get a little nervous in the beginning. These blocks are pretty easy, though, so it wasn't so bad. The trick is working in the "wonky". In theory it should be easy, but sometimes if you're not wonky enough, it just looks like you messed up what was supposed to be a straight seam. Yikes!

November Stitch Tease

I'm a little behind on posting about my Stitch Tease Bee Blocks, but I definitely didn't want to miss showing these ones. Hadley chose Anna Maria Horner feathers for her bee blocks, and they are so gorgeous!

These blocks weren't the easiest I've ever made, and some of my bee mates mentioned having trouble getting the correct size in the end. I was very careful to print the templates at 100% and cut out each piece with caution! I chose to paper piece the feather portion, and that made things very manageable. The blocks ended up coming out to the correct size, but I admit to taking it very slowly with these ones. The pieces (templates) are not normal rectangles, so lining up the edges takes a little patience. 

Overall, though, these blocks are definitely worth the effort. They're so beautiful. I can't wait to see Hadley's finished quilt. 

October Stitch Tease

October was Jennifer's month in the Stitch Tease Bee, and she chose Bottled Rainbow blocks. These are ticker-tape blocks that are really fun to do, and they are perfect for using up those scraps. We used the tutorial by Stitched in Color. These blocks can be done using Quilt As You Go (which we did for Jennifer). Each block finishes at 16" x 20", so we only made one this month. Everyone did a different color, and I did dark green. I can't wait to see this quilt put together, and it's definitely a quilt I'm going to put on my "to do someday" list. Hopefully "someday" I'll find the time.

September Stitch Tease

Hello! It's been too long...

I have only one excuse, and I think it's rather spectacular: Mr. Sexy Pants and I welcomed our own tiny human into the world in May! Needless to say, blogging has not been high on the priority list these past four months. Now it's time to play a little catch up. 

September marked the kick off of a new round of the Stitch Tease Bee. First up was Nicky from the UK. She gave us an awesome color palette and asked for any blocks inspired by Islamic art. She provided a great Pinterest board for ideas. Here are the fabrics I pulled based on Nicky's beautiful color palette, but I only used a few of them. 

I was really nervous to make these blocks; typically I like more direction and less freedom with bee blocks. In these cases I get nervous that they might not like what I make. As it happens, I'm quite happy with how mine turned out this time around. These are two paper piecing patterns that I drafted myself. 

I love how a very simple geometric block (such as the one that makes up one-quarter of this 2nd block for Nicky) can make such interesting designs when multiplied and placed together. I'm anxious to see this one done with more colors  to see how different shapes within the block can be emphasized. 

In the spirit of catching up, I must also include the blocks I made for our Stitch Tease Bee founder, Di back in June. She asked for intersection blocks made from a tutorial by Film in the Fridge. These were fun and fast to make, and I also loved her color palette. This will be a gorgeous quilt. 

We took a couple months off this summer, which was especially convenient for me after having the babe. I'm very excited that we've started up again, though. I look forward to making these blocks every month. 

April Stitch Tease Blocks

This month's Stitch Tease Bee Queen is my friend, Cindy. She went easy on us and gave us a quick, fun block with easy color instructions. We were to use any bright color for the plus center and low volume prints for the background. This is going to be an awesome quilt!

She also requested that we each make a siggy block. I didn't take a picture of mine (my handwriting is wretched), but we made the type that you can find in this tutorial from PS I Quilt. These look great incorporated into the backing of a quilt, and they're a fun way to commemorate all of the different people who contributed to a bee quilt or other collaborative effort.

Happy Quilting!