Beehive Catch up

Yesterday I actually had time to sew! It was like an Easter miracle, I got up in the morning and B asked if I wanted to sew today? Did I want to sew? Heck Yes! No need to ask me twice.

First up I had to finish of some Wanta Fanta blocks for our January Queen Bee. Yes I am soo late in getting these done, but they are done now and they will be in the mail today.

Then it was onto this month's Queen Bee's block and she picked Tic Tac Toe in Aqua's, Navy's and Low Volume. I love the tic tac toe block, it is SO EASY to put together I don't even need to refer to the cutting or piecing instructions anymore. I can put this baby together with my eyes closed, well almost!

And since I was on a roll I thought it was about time I pieced together my blocks from last years Beehive. I still need to make four of those blocks, but the 12 I already have are pieced into rows so that they are ready for my last four blocks that I am hoping to get made this week.

And with that, I am all caught up with my required sewing! We for the next three days anyway, before I start on next month's Queen's blocks. I've had a sneak peek of her block and it's one I haven't made before. I excited to give it a go.

Bee Blocks #thebeehivequilts

I was so far behind in my bee blocks for my bee group with The Beehive Quilts but last month I got all caught up and for the past two weeks I've actually been twiddling my thumbs waiting for October's block to be announced.

I really don't know what's come over me! But anyway, I realised that I hadn't even blogged them and thought I'd better document them here or they didn't really happen :P

So here they are:

I don't have too much longer til I find out what this month's block is and I can't wait to get started!

I've shared more about my bee blocks both here and over at And Sew We Craft. You can find those posts here, here and here.

#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.