For Nadia

Hi Nadia - hope you enjoying that little guy and that wonderful baby smell :-)

I used Oh Fransson's Hedgerow pattern for my block - hope you like it!

Crosses for Jacquie

Somehow I had trouble getting my seams to line up perfect for all the crosses for Jacquie...

but I made three and hope they are ok!

blocks for Nadia

Hi Nadia,

I hope you are doing great with your new baby! I had a lot of fun stitching up your blocks yesterday. I was in a groove and ended up making three! I kept the blocks simple in order to show off your fabrics. I did this one first. How much simpler could I get?  ha ha.


Then came this block.  You'll notice I added in some of my own fabric here: the sunspots just seemed to go so well!


 And here, I wanted to use up the last piece of the elephants, and realized these donkeys would go quite nicely with your colors and theme!

I hope you like them!  They will be in the mail tomorrow.

Rossie

ETA:  I'm sending Nadia an email to this effect, but she probably should not use the block with the donkeys as there seems to be a problem with that fabric fading:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchtoastcake/4399660496/in/pool-freshmodernquilts 

information about Nadia's blocks

Hi all,

I emailed Nadia this morning to ask how big she wanted the blocks to be and for confirmation that it was "stitcher's choice."  She asked me to pass along her response to you all.

Nadia emailed me back to say "let's do 12" blocks"  and....drumroll please....that she gave birth to baby Gus yesterday!  Hello Gus!

The blocks are stitcher's choice, but if you read Nadia's post you'll get some good hints on what appeals to the new mom.

Cheers,
Rossie

A funny thing happened on the way to the sewing machine...

Carissa, you are probably going to think I had too much fun putting your blocks together. When pulling scraps, I kept thinking about what sort of books would have these fabrics for covers and then I started putting the "books" with "similar topics" together.   Thus, we have a section of cook books...

gardening books, and books on mid-century modern design.

In this photograph, the books to the left and the right are novels. Those in the center have titles like "Parenting Your Teen." Oh dear.

I hope you like them. If they are too novelty for you, feel free to leave them out. Stitch them into placements or something. :)

And Jacquie, here are your crosses. I've no funny stories to go along with these, but they do make me laugh because I was watching "Lost" while piecing them and every time I see them I think about "Lost" and how someone described it as similar to "getting really drunk and reading a choose-your-own-adventure book from back to front."

Both packages were posted last week so you should have them soon!

criss-crosses

Here are three blocks for Jacquie's cross quilt--I hope they're what you're looking for! I loved the fabrics you sent! i also added a tiny strip of black to one of the blocks. I had the same problem Jess had with the seam allowances, but I think that's just par for the course. I can't wait to see how this quilt looks when it's all done!

A little sigh, and it's February!

Friends! First, I know I have a lot of apologizing (and sewing!) to do. I'm behind! And dreadfully so! BUT! Tomorrow is Sunday, and I really think I can catch up. I really do. Really really.

And, to make matters worse, it's my month to mail out fabric! Am I prepared? Only partially... I have loads of beautiful fabric for which I had all the best intentions, but like so many things, I'm behind.

You see, I have a bun in the oven! Well truth be told, I'm 39 (!) weeks pregnant, so I have no time to waste! I've been commanded to be on the couch for the remainder of my pregnancy, but I've been letting myself sneak off to take care of things in the mornings, and tomorrow it will be this! I can't wait!

We're having a boy sometime this month, and we're terribly excited. I have these lovely fabrics, which I intended to make bibs and little things out of, but I now can't do it -- what if I make said bibs and we don't use them? I'll be heartbroken. A beautiful quilt on the other hand? Sure to be used! Voila!

I've used gray, yellow and white in our bedroom for the baby, so I'm going to use what I have on hand, in gray and white, to send you along with the super cute prints. I don't mind at all if you add from your stash, if you'd like.

My style in quilts is simple, modern, and not especially sophisticated... I love this one:



Well, I love everything she does...

And here are the fabrics I'm sending out! I totally love them...


If you don't use all of the prints, I'd love to have them back if there's enough to salvage... thanks!

Thanks too for being patient with me, and I apologize for being a behind-the-ball-quilt-bee participant. Tomorrow is sewing day and chances are I'll have a lot more to post! : ) Thank you in advance for lovely blocks for our little boy!

Red crosses

This is the first time I've made cross blocks, even though they've been everywhere in blogland. I kept going until I ran out of white, so I ended up making three. They were pretty simple to make, but a little tricky for me because I am not the best at working with small pieces. Also, I normally press all seams open, but it didn't seem appropriate for these blocks. I ended up pressing them in whichever direction worked best, so the backs seem kind of a mess. But they lay flat... I guess that's all that matters. I had fun with this little project - Thanks Jacquie!

Autumn

Oh Rossie, you must think I'm an airhead. I mailed this block off ages ago and could have sworn I posted it. Guess not.

The word I chose for you is my favorite season, autumn. The hardest part of the whole challenge was settling on a word. It's amazing how many phrases or words I was able to convince myself might be used by someone else or could (even remotely) be considered religious or nationalistic. Turns out autumn was my first choice over any of the others I thought of. I love the colors, the weather, the way the air smells at that time of year.

After mailing this to you I realized that perhaps I was not supposed to border the block on the top and bottom, so I hope that hasn't been a problem. I'm looking forward to seeing all the messages you collect from all your "bee" friends.

books for Carissa

I agree with Jess...I totally want to make one of these quilts for myself. I had fun digging through my stash to find fabric strips for this. I think this ended up being a little bit longer than 30", so I had just the right amount of white for this block.

Books for Carissa

These three blocks are various widths. I found my blocks became wonkier the wider they got, so I kept them in three shorter lengths that Carissa can combine with others however she likes.

I love this idea. I am seriously thinking about using this design to make a quilt for my son’s Kindy teacher (she is a book lover). Also, Carissa sent her fabric in the cutest packaging ever! It was very popular with the monster-loving little boys at my house.