It’s Stitchin’ Time (Friday Foto Fun #15)
Happy Friday! Happy Embroidery! I joined the Cozy Blue Stitch club after trying one of their embroidery kits in December! I was able to do some stitching this week when I was recovering from being sick. It was actually a lot of stitching.
I finished off this month's stitch club and I LOVE this design! "Show Up, Be True, Be Kind, Keep Going" I think this stitch club has gotten me in the mood to learn more embroidery stitches, and it’s a great portable project for all my trips for work.
I am also in 2 different Bee Hives this year. A hive consists of 12 different quilters that all take turns being Queen. The month you are Queen, you pick out a block and everyone in the hive sends you that block. It's pretty neat because I am Queen in April for both of my hives! My plan is to have the same block made for me in both hives so I can make a much bigger quilt with fewer blocks I will personally have to make! Here are the blocks I made for the January Queens of the 2 hives I belong to.
Both of those were try #2s of making the block. Things I have learned are:
- Colors and undertones are hard to see with the light I have in the sewing room. I need to get some daylight bulbs.
- I have a hard time cutting on a diagonal, and I'm much better at sewing on a diagonal then trimming.
What are some of your favorite blocks for bee hives to make? I still haven't figured out which block I'm going to request!
I am going to be off on business trips for the next few weeks, so you'll hopefully see more embroidery projects that I'll be working on and all the quilty goodness I can shove into the weekends when I'm home.
My available time for quilting this upcoming week:
Saturday, Sunday (I'm crying on the inside)
Projects I want to work on:
Secret Sewing
Goals for the Projects:
Secret Sewing: SHHHHH!!! It's a secret. But it involves free patterns for my blog followers! Stay tuned!
Hope you have a productive week!
Your turn! What did you accomplish this week? A block? A quilt top? Link up below!
A few reminders:
- When you link up a post, please try to support the others folks in the linky party! Let's spread the motivation and support to help everyone make progress in their own time.
- Your post does not need to be something quilty you accomplished, but definitely encouraged. Sometimes life just gets in the way, but feel free to share something you are proud of this week.
- In your blog post, please include a link back to my blog or grab the Friday Foto Fun Button and put it on your sidebar. This way others who visit your blog can also join in on the fun!
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How do you get into a hive? Is it by invite, or sign up? I think that sounds like so much fun, but I can never figure it out. I love your embroidery and the verse. I agree that you might enjoy embroidery on your travels. Speaking of which, I’m sorry that you have more travel ahead. Maybe the storm system this Sunday/Monday will give you another day home 🙂
I think I just got lucky that I saw sign ups for the Blossom Heart Bee Hives. Alyce then sorted everyone into groups. The second hive I joined was because girls dropped out and they were looking for people to fill spots. If that happens or if sign ups or next year open, I’ll be sure to let you know!
The winter storm is looking like it’ll just be a long day at the airport, but we’ll see what happens!
Thanks! Boo to the long day at the airport. 🙁
I love the saying on your embroidery. Very pretty stitches, too. I’m looking forward to more of your embroideries. I can see how having some stitching to do would help balance business travel.
Thanks Nancy! Embroidery is also way easier than traveling with my machine. I used to do that for longer trips, but it involved a lot more planning and thinking ahead because I wouldn’t bring large mats to cut up fabric.
Anytime there are a lot of seams in the bee block, you will get size variations. The absolute safest block is something with some improv which can be made bigger and trimmed down by the recipient (I find that people who have a 12.5″ square ruler tend to be scant, as the block shrinks once the pressure of the ruler is removed). Also with something that you will assemble with sashing the blocks don’t have to be perfectly sized. I know that the beehive quilts by Alyce tend to be ones which do NOT have sashing because they have secondary patterns, so be prepared to make an extra block or two if you get some which you can’t use.
Lisa – this is probably the most helpful thing I’ve read about Bees! So thank you so much! Both of my Bees are Alyce’s groups though so we do have lots of secondary designs going on. I’m trying to decide if I just want to make a block that I’d like my swarms make for me 😛 Thanks again for your advice!! <3
These bee blocks look like fun. Interesting idea to have both groups do the same block for you. I am in awe of what you accomplish – working and sewing. I love the little embroidery piece – they are fun. Safe travels – and I hope it involves some of the sewing time you’d like!
Thanks Kathleen!!! I’m all about function sometimes and I like larger quilts! I figured it’d be an interesting to make one larger Bee quilt 😀
I’m happy to say I escaped most MN before the major snow hit!