Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Hive #1- February Block

(Hive 1 only! If you're in hive 2, please follow Joanna's instructions)

  • Block Design: Please follow this tutorial from Jeni Baker of In Color Order.
  • Background: Please use a solid white for the negative space
  • Color palette: Please use cool colors: green, turquoise, blue, cool purple (no magenta or burgundy) and citron (cool yellow-green). Follow the same pattern for the prints as the tutorial, but the colors do not have to match where they are placed on that block.
  • Scrappiness: The block can be scrappy or one print of each color, whichever you prefer, but everything but the negative space should be prints.

Hive #2- February Block

(Hive 2 only! If you're in hive 1, please follow Rose's instructions)


  • Block Design: Joanna would like us to make the Hummingbird block from Red Pepper Quilts. You should have received the foundation paper pieces from Joanna. Please make TWO blocks.
  • Fabric selection: You should have received a piece of background fabric from Joanna. If you have not received the fabric and templates, please contact her. For the hummingbirds, you can use either solids or prints, but if you use prints, Joanna requests that the prints don't read too juvenile.
  • Color palette: Each hummingbird should be two toned, any colors derived from the following color scheme:

Monday, January 26, 2015

January Minutes

Present:
Joanna, Kathy, Jennie, Katy, Heather, Aimee, Andrea, Cristin, Cindy, Barb, Abbe, Vicki, Barb, Rose, Christina, Bethany, Elizabeth, Stacey, Kim, Jaclyn, Joanna, and Ann

Introduction: 
What technique you're afraid of & why?

Block Bees:
2014 Block Bee- Queen: Amiee Marshall



          

2015 Block Bee- Hive #1 Queen: Joanna Martinez
         

2015 Block Bee- Hive #2 Queen: Nicole Lorenz
         
        Winner: Leigh Morgan
          



New Business:
 *For anyone that does a demo at one of our meeting you will be put in to a drawing at the end of the year to win an awesome prize!
*We are planning a field trip to the Fabric Shack in Waynesville in the near future.


Demo:
Joanna Malachowsky did a great job showing us how to make a zipper pouch. She used the measurements of the small zipper pouch in this tutorial:
Noodle Head Open Wide Zipper Pouch Tutorial



Charity:
*We have a charity sew in scheduled for March 21st to put together Ugly Quilts. It will be facilitated by Joanna Malachowsky and Alison Curtin
Time: 10am-2pm
*We will be Volunteering at The James Stitching Sisters Sewing Center in the Summer. If you want more information on how you can volunteer please visit Kathy's Blog. You can also volunteer on your own.
* Make Zipper Pouch Door prizes for the JSS quilt day in April. Kathy bought us fabric to make zipper pouches to donate for door prizes at the JSS.

Events:
            Febuary- *Super Bowl Sale at Quilt Beginnings on  February 1st, 2015
  *Website Update: If you are looking for information on the next meetings, you can always find them under the minutes of the month before and also at the top of this blog, under Meeting Info
*Fabric Swap- To participate you will need to bring one yard of low volume fabric, cut into 8 fat eighths
What is low volume?

How to cut a fat eighth?
**Block Raffle: bring your "orphan" blocks- blocks you made for a quilt that you never finished, practice blocks, or random blocks you have lying around! You can bring up to 2 blocks for a raffle entry!
**UFO challenge intro- more to come

Show and Tell












Sunday, January 11, 2015

Bee Block Instructions: 2015 Hive 2, January


(Hive 2 only! If you're in hive 1, please follow Joanna's instructions. If you're finishing up the 2014 bee, please follow Aimee's instructions.)

Sorry for the delay in getting this posted—hopefully everyone has received their fabric by now, so I’m sure you’re all ready to get started on this month’s bee block. Don’t worry if this block looks complicated to you, it’s actually deceptively simple to make thanks to some strip piecing and chain piecing.

This block turned out HUGE—unfinished, it should measure 20.5” square.  I’ve wanted to make a red & white quilt for a long time now, so thanks so much for helping to make that happen. I hope you enjoy making this block as much as I did designing it.
Cutting Instructions:From the RED Fat Quarter, cut the following:- (3) 2.5” x 22” strips
                - sub-cut one of the strips into (8) 2.5” squares
                - DO NOT cut the other two 2.5” strips
- (1) 4.5” x 22” strip
                - sub-cut into (8) 2.5” x 4.5” rectangles
- (1) 4.5” square


Note: You will have a pretty healthy “scrap” of the red fabric left.   It’s all yours—I don’t need it back.
From the 1/3 yard WHITE (Moda Bella Solids PFD Bleached White) fabric, cut the following:**I can’t remember how generously I cut your 1/3 yards, so please cut carefully as there is just enough fabric to complete the block.**
- (3) 2.5” x WOF strips
                - sub-cut one of the strips into (8) 2.5” squares
                - sub-cut one of the strips into (8) 2.5” x4.5” rectangles
                - sub-cut one of the strips into (2) 2.5” x 22” strips
- (1) 4.5” x WOF strip
                - sub-cut into (8) 4.5” squares



Piecing Instructions:This block is composed of flying geese units and four patch units plus some cut fabric squares/rectangles.

A few general notes about piecing:
- Please press your seams to the dark (red) side of the fabric where possible.  This block comes together easily when you can nest your seams together.
- Use a scant ¼” seam to piece your quilt block.


To make the four patch units:

1. Sew one red 2.5” x 22” strip and one white 2.5” x 22” strip together.  Repeat with remaining long strips to create two strip-pieced units. Press toward the red fabric.
2. Sub-cut your strip pieced units into (16) 2.5” segments.
3. Take two sub-cut units, nest your seams and sew the two pieces together.
4. Press four patch unit, pressing seams to the side.  Repeat to make a total of (8) four patch units.




To make the flying geese units:I use the “flipped corner” method of making flying geese.


Using (4) 2.5” x 4.5” red rectangles and (8) 2.5” white squares.  Create your red flying geese.  You will need a total of four flying geese units with the red fabric as the main fabric and the white fabric as the corners.   

Using (4) 2.5” x 4.5” white rectangles and (8) 2.5” red squares. Create your white flying geese. You will need a total of four flying geese units with the white fabric as the main fabric and the red fabric as the corners.
At this point, layout the final block design as follows:

Before piecing together each row, you’ll need to create the “arrow units” by sewing 1 flying geese unit to the adjacent 2.5” x 4.5” rectangle. You will piece together a total of (8) arrow units.

Piece together each row.  Once rows are pieced, press the rows in alternate directions per the diagram below:

P.S. Have you ever tried “webbing” before when chain piecing?  I first heard about this technique on Bonnie Hunter’s Quiltville blog, where she uses it to piece together entire quilt tops.  While I haven’t tried that yet, it also works great for piecing together blocks that have several components.  The best part? You don’t even have to snip the threads between rows whenever you assemble the entire block! Less cutting means faster sewing!

Last step is to sew together all of your rows.  Once your block is assembled, press each seam in the same direction (I pressed all of my seams up towards the top of the block, but it doesn’t matter as long as they’re all going in the same direction.)


Last, but not least, this block needs a name…any suggestions?

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Last block for the 2014 Bee

It's Aimee's turn to be queen! Here is her request:

(2014 bee only! If you're in the 2015 bee Hive 1, please look at the link for Joanna's block. If you're in Hive 2, please follow Nicole's instructions.)

  • Block Design: Please follow this tutorial. I love snow, so I was looking for something similar to a snowflake. The size of the block will be 12.5" (unfinished).
  • Fabric selection: Please use shades of blue for the snowflake (prints only please). The blues can range anywhere from sky blue to navy blue.
  • Background: Can be any low volume print with a white background.
  • Scrappiness: The scrappier the better!

Please let Aimee, Joanna or Andrea know on the Facebook group, on Instagram, or on Flickr if you have any questions!

PS If you need a refresher on paper piecing, Cristin had provided this link and this one for her July block, they're both excellent tutorials!

Hive #1 January Bee Block

Hi everyone, here is the information for the January bee block:

(Hive 1 only! If you're in hive 2, please follow Nicole's instructions. If you're finishing up the 2014 bee, please follow Aimee's instructions.)

  • Block Design: Please follow this tutorial from Quilt Dad
  • Fabric selection: I would prefer prints that read as one color. Try to stay away from multiple color prints, but other than that anything goes.
  • Color palette: Bold, bright colors of the rainbow. No pastels, and no fabrics that read as white, black, brown or gray please.
  • Scrappiness: Please make each corner of the block a different color! This block is meant to be super scrappy, so feel free to use as many different strips as you want :)

Thanks, and can’t wait to see all the blocks!