Under the old oak tree

My second contribution for the Love circle house and trees quilt this month is complete. Since I already made a house, I googled "tree quilt block". Oh the great goog. I found this lovely block and liked the look of the free-form swirls. It was appealing to me after all that exact(ish) piecing for the house. I also decided it would be a great way to use some scraps from the jars. 

I used some Steam-a-seam Lite on my chosen scraps and then improv-cut teardrop shapes that I figured would play nicely as leaves. After rearranging the layout several times I landed on the arrangement above and ironed everything into place. I wanted this tree to have a fat ol' trunk, but it ended up looking too 'heavy' with such a huge chunk of brown. I fixed that problem by attaching a little hide-y hole. 

To make sure everything stays in place, today I stitched near the edges of each appliquéd piece. A happy tree indeed! 

Linking to Finish it up Friday 

Craft it forward

Some weeks ago, I received a lovely package from Charise of Charise Creates. Hers was one of the first blogs I started following, so it's pretty special to have gotten this lovely potholder from her hands. 

How great is that fabric on the back?

She had a blog post on Crafting it Forward, and I was one of the lucky first five to sign up. Now it's my turn! If you would like something handmade from me, just comment below. I will make and send a little something to the first five commenters. You will receive your gift in the next nine months. In turn, upon receiving your crafty gift, write a blog post showing what you received and then 'craft it forward' in the same way, asking for comments and sending the fruits of your labor along within nine months. 

I think this is a fun way to share our talents with others. I hope you do, too!

Little house on the prairie

Love circle blocks this month are pretty free-form. Natalie requested "happy houses and trees" while giving us free reign to do what we would like as long as we were bright and scrappy. She also posted some suggested house blocks to get us started, and I chose to use the suggested pattern from verykerryberry.

I blew it up a little bit to make things easier on myself and set to freezer paper piecing. I've only used freezer paper once before to make a reverse applique panel. This was quite different, and a bit more fiddly. I'm glad I tried it. I might have more respect for foundation paper piecing now. It's possible things would have gone more smoothly for me if I had trimmed around each piece with the same allowance all around, then I could have lined up fabric edges instead of feeling my way through the fabric for the pieces of paper. Lesson learned.

I did end up with quite a cute house in the end. Some cupcake-loving couple lives here, apparently. That might be me and Dave. Though he would never go for a pink roof. You can see some of my points aren't exact (cough chimney cough) but for a first time with this technique I'm pretty happy. If there is anything I've learned after making a few large quilts, it's that the small mistakes disappear in the final product. 

After trimming up my little house I needed to set it in a larger block, Natalie didn't ask for a particular size or shape but requested the blocks be close in area to a 12.5" square or larger. I decided to improvise myself a bit of a scene. It was straightforward to sew some green and blue together to fit the sides of the house and I set it just off center because I liked it better that way. Add some blue sky to the top and green grass to the bottom and voila! An approximately 12.5" square quilt block.

I like the space in this block -- it made me think of the houses near the barn back home, set it in huge lots of grass, grass, and more grass. Plus, there's that oh so cute cupcake waiting to be eaten.

Linking to Finish it up Friday! 

Simple blossoms

With my sewing machine stowed away so much this summer, I actually got into a nice rhythm of getting my hand stitching projects done pretty readily. I've got a little pouch with my scissors, templates, needles, and thread tucked away in the side table on "my" side of the couch. It has been convenient to sit and unwind with JJ Abrams' Fringe on Netflix while piecing hexagons together. 

These latest two bee blocks are star blossoms, and were quite fast and enjoyable. I really like the colors in these. As an interesting aside, this same pattern was the topic of the second post I wrote about my first time with EPP. I've learned so much since then! 

Covered in bees

To be honest, July and (half of) August flew by this year with nary a glance back to say hello. My summer projects have been exclusively making blocks for the quilting bees I joined. Bees, bees, bees!

In April I was totally on top of things (despite traveling for interviews) and thought "yes it will be great to join a couple more bees!"  I've really enjoyed being a part of the new groups and working on everyone's creative ideas, but boy I didn't expect to have so little time to sew this summer. Wrapping up the PhD took more of my time than I expected. (Duh. Did I really expect to coast through writing my thesis?) It's been a challenge to keep up, which is very unlike me. I'm all caught up now, but apologies to those who have gotten blocks a little later than expected.

That said, I've worked on some lovely blocks this summer that I haven't shared yet! This will be a summary post of the most recent ones I've sent winging their way to sewing rooms around the globe.

I love the pink and teal fabric in this one and the unusual combination with the purple. It's a slice of a larger design with a garden of pinwheel flowers like this one, and I'll bet it will look stunning when all our pieces are together. 

Hot air balloon! I have a lack of "true blue" in my stash, so I got creative with a strip from a jelly roll I had hanging around and made it work to get the sky blue background on this one. Phew!

The good ol' x and + block. I am still not tired of these, and this one may be my favorite one I've made yet. I'm really liking the combination of colors. That bright pink makes it for me. 

And latest in the bee-finished pile are these 3/4 log cabins in "high volume". Appropriately, these nested bars kind of remind me of the sound bars I remember watching on my dad's old tape deck bouncing up and down as the music changed. 

I've got a few more bee blocks going for August, and I get to plan out projects for my months as queen bee - September in two bees as a matter of coincidence. I've already started working up a color wheel and have picked out the pattern for one group. Now to think of what to do with hexagons.

The long drought is over

After I finished writing my thesis on Monday I finally picked up needle and thread again. It felt good! Unfortunately after two straight evenings of EPP my fingers don't feel so good now ;o)

This panel is headed out to a fellow hexagon bee member in the morning. 

Fresh Sewing Day July

I graduated! Well, walked in the ceremony. My thesis is in the final stages of writing and due to be submitted later this summer. But, the pomp and circumstance occurred, family was out, and a good time was had by all. It wasn't even disgustingly hot. Hot, yes. Disgusting, no. So, does a Ph.D. count as a finish? I'm going to say yes.

Before graduation I finished a plethora of bee blocks, serendipitously all star-related. The celebrations got a bit in the way of sewing as I had to pack up my sewing machine and related paraphernalia to accommodate my parents, brother, and nieces in our apartment for a couple weeks, but I did do some hand stitching while camping with Dave's parents earlier in the month. I made great strides on my (still nameless) Color Affection shawl and a hexie sewing machine bee block while in the great outdoors, but they didn't get finished until I flipped to July on the calendar. One small project eeked in before all the guests arrived, as it was a gift for my mom, but other than that June was another lean month indeed! It's ok though, life has certainly been exciting :)

1. Schoenrock cross bee block     2. Maker's choice star bee blocks

3. Spring Showers bee block     4. Travel jewelry pouch     

5. A friend and I (on right) all smiles at commencement, funny hats, hoods, and all

I'm looking forward to July being more relaxed and being done with my bee commitments all *ahead* of time as I'm more accustomed to doing. As it stands I'm a touch behind with a couple blocks for June, but they will all be done and sent out this week.

My other goal for July is singular and simple: finish Kelly's baby quilt. It is basted, marked, and folded up ready to be quilted. It's been on my list, I just need some time to do it. Dave has kindly set up the card table and my sewing machine again so I'm all set.

Linking up with Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts