June bee block and some journal covers

 Two journal covers I made for my daughter and my niece.  The tutorial I used was here but I added a bookmark to each.  The first one was simply adding a ribbon after it was assembled.

 For the one using Verna, I sewed the bookmark to the wrong side of the inside cover before sewing the two together.  It might be a bit of overkill, but the Mother Goose book with the ribbon bookmark is currently getting carried around by the ribbon so I figured that sturdy was a good thing.

And here is my June bee block for Melissa.  It is based on her tutorial.   I wasn't intentional about getting the text to go in one direction until after all the component parts were assembled.  I was close.  It should hopefully make it to her on the first day of her month.  My other project, the Lynnebobsquarepants quilt, is currently waiting for me to trim too many HST.  One bee block was much faster.  I think I'll start to try to do about 25 a day to try to accomplish at least something on it every day.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival: Daisy Strings

My entry for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival is the string quilt I made for my mother using leftover scraps from my bee quilt.  I had a large bin of random strips that I knew I needed to clean up and organize but really didn't want to.  Instead I took some cheap 12x12" scrapbook paper and started a string quilt which left me with very little left to organize and sort. 

And facilitating the ripping of lots of little pieces of paper by a 4 year old and a 1 year old was an interesting part of the process.  The 1 year old kept grabbing the recycling bin and wanted to take it out any time there was any piece of paper in it.  It became a full time job but is a great memory for this quilt.

Pattern: slight variation on Valentine by Elizabeth Hartman
Fabrics: Daisy Chain by Amy Butler; Kona: Navy, Olive, Sour Apple, Pear, White, Robin's Egg, Azure, Peacock; Moda Light Jade, Free Spirit  Jade
Backed in Robert Kaufman Olive flannel
Bound with Kona Navy
Quilted by me in an all over stipple
Pre-washed size:  58x70"

Hope you enjoy the rest of the festival!

Oops

Here's what happens when I don't carefully read directions carefully.  

This block 

becomes this block.  

A quick lesson in how to add a half inch on both sides when I failed to think about the finished size needing an extra half inch.  It isn't a perfect wonky cross but I couldn't quite figure out how to pull that off.  I had a hard time picking a color to add that would go with the colors.  I added the blue to the original blocks and decided to just keep the blue going.  Next time I will pay closer attention.  

Just because I think it looks neat, my daughter took a picture of the outside of a drawstring backpack I made for her cousin.  Although sometimes letting her have the camera means we have a whole bunch of pictures of her nose up close, she does end up getting some other shots from interesting perspectives.

Wonky crosses

Here is a sample block for my work project.  They ask for staff art every year so a few of us decided we should try to make a staff quilt.  After much deliberation about the quilt pattern that any experience level could manage, we decided on a wonky cross quilt using either Elizabeth Hartman's tutorial or Jennifer Jenkinson's of That Girl That Quilt.

These are the colors that I received for Sew.Bee.Create this month with the directions to make something wonky or improv.  I made some wonky triangles and played around with them on the design board.  This was my first real attempt to have a design that requires filling in the spaces and matching things up.  

My process.  I taped a 15" square to the design board and started placing triangles.  By popular vote of some family members, the diamonds/kites won.

And then I started second guessing myself after I used up nearly all of the grey solid and made a wonky cross block just in case.  It did give me more practice for the work quilt, but I wish I would have had a bit more grey to tone it down a bit.  I have decided to go with the attitude that I won't be upset if my blocks don't make the cut for any of the projects.   

Last but not least, the HST for the Lynnebobsquarepants quilt for MJ are nearly all done and ready to be assembled.

Please excuse the lovely layout of this post.  Things just aren't quite working out with the layout of pictures and text today.