Wednesday, May 12, 2010

my bee block idea

June is my month in the Vintage Sheet Bee, and I'm working on my block idea. I started with 3" squares, and made up some slightly wonky courthouse stair blocks. I made sure the center square was straight (though not centered), and trimmed each block to 12.5" in one dimension, and squared up the other sides at whatever size fit best (varying from about 13" to 14"). Like so:







Then I chopped the blocks into 4 corners, with the center square in the middle of the cuts. I added a thin sashing in the middle of the blocks, and a larger sashing all around, to make it look like windows.



I don't totally love it yet, but flimsies never look as good as the finished quilts do! I'm sure I'll love it when it's all done. I had originally intended for it to be a table topper, but it turns out that it will almost exactly fit the top of the credenza (that's fancy for "big long filing cabinet") in my office. Maybe that will keep me from building up piles of crap on it?? Yeah, not likely!

Anyway, I like the basic block idea. It's a great way to use up scraps, and even if I decide not to do this window idea, or even chop them up at all, I think they'd still look nice on their own with some white sashing. So, unless I have some other brilliant idea in the next couple of weeks, I think this will be my bee block!

4 comments:

  1. you don't love it...are you kidding? this is amazing!!! i am in absolute quilty love!!!

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  2. very cool idea, have never seen anything like this! And for bee-blocks, this is great, because I've made whole quilts with blocks before that you make, then cut apart (e.g. disappearing 9-patch) and after the fun of the first few, I really wonder why I sew each block TWICE when it'd be so much faster to leave them together ;) So share the load and you'll get an awesome quilt in the end!

    Cheers,
    Christine

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  3. I love this idea! It is so cool - once I get a little better at quilting, I plan on trying it.

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  4. I think this is a great idea! I am not a big fan of plain log cabins, this is a neat way to add interest to them! I look forward to making a block or two for you.

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