bee block roundup

It's been so long, I think I've forgotten how to blog!

Yes, I made it back from New York, and the trip was a lot of fun. The 'Quilters Take Manhattan' event was interesting, and it was a hoot to watch Mark Lipinski and Jay McCarroll interact. I was too shy to actually speak to either one of them after the talk, much less get my picture taken with them!! But here's a crummy picture I took while they were doing the interview. That crazy outfit on the right was something Jay made in college, and it's what he submitted as his 'representative' piece to go along with his interview.

He also showed a bunch of patchwork clothes he had made, modeled by members of the Alliance. Beautiful!

Since that trip, I've been crazy busy - catching up on work, getting the kid started in kindergarten, finishing a big quilt (more on that later!), getting ready for quilt retreat (it was awesome! more on that later too!), and so much more. I've been keeping up with my do. Good Stitches bee blocks, and here's a round up of the ones I've made over the last few months:

Lollipops for Des. Here's the completed quilt. It's fantastic!!! I had so much fun making these blocks that I made like 3 times as many as I was supposed to. Maybe that's a sign I should make a quilt like this myself!

'Houndstooth' blocks for Lydia - these were fun to make! No finished quilt for this one yet...

'Citrus sails' for Lyanna. Looks like it's almost done!

Character blocks for Melissa. She's going all out to make 4 quilts for a family in need. Here's the first completed top.

Holly's purple/orange/gray blocks for last month...

The beast - a swoon block for Rachel. This block annoyed me in so many ways, from its size (24" square) to its complexity to the amount of fabric it required. The fabric requirements were very specific (big prints, in tomato red, slate grey, dark blue and light blue), and I had exactly one red fabric that I thought would fit. Problem was, I had only a 16x20" piece of it when the pattern called for a fat quarter!! Right. Switching out the normal flying geese for the no-waste method helped, and I just squeaked it out. But I was afraid the whole time of screwing it up... not fun! On the up side, I'm sure it will be a lovely quilt. Here's a collage of the other blocks so far.

I'm up for the Inspire circle for October. I chose this framed scrappy 16-patch block. It was so much fun to make (and I do love to use up scraps!) that I might just make another quilt like this for myself some day!

My plan is to make the quilt bigger (since Project Linus seems to always need more twin-size quilts for the older kids) by adding solid blocks of big colorful prints. I can't wait to put this one together!!

Okay, that's all the blocks. Yay! Next post, quilt retreat. I'm just waiting for Karen's post, so I can steal pictures. :-)