#TheBeeHiveQuilts Bee Blocks Month 1 & 2

At the start of the year I decided to sign up for the Beehive Quilts set up by Alyce of Blossom Heart Quilts.

I had two reasons:

1. I haven't been quilting nearly as much as I'd like
2. I would like to increase my quilting skills, because of my lack of quilting lately I think my skills have slipped a bit.

And well the first month definitely was an effort. Sharon picked a paper pieced block called Star Plus and I had never paper pieced before in my life.

This block really took me out of my comfort zone and to tell you the truth I am still embarrassed by the finish of this block.

I couldn't get the quadrants to line up properly and I later learnt that I shouldn't have removed the papers until I finished piecing the whole block. I also didn't trim the seam allowances properly as I was scared to cut too much!

Overall that block left me feeling completely inadequate as a quilter and completely embarrassed to be sending this block to someone. But since I had attempted this blocks so many times over the space of a month I was pretty sure I couldn't do any better than I already had so I bundled it up with all my left over scraps and a box of chocolates and hoped for the best.

So when month 2 was coming around I was really nervous about what Lisa would choose but I was really excited to see that she picked Tic Tac Toe, because that block was right up my alley, NO PAPER PIECING FTW!

It came together really quickly and pretty much all of my points matched up which really helped my quilting confidence increase somewhat. And I've even started cutting more fabric to start making myself some of these blocks. Who knows, I might even pick this block for myself when it's my turn to be Queen Bee.