Q4 Bee Blocks

Here's the Q4 bee block report. I've chosen to only continue with The Bee Hive and do. Good Stitches moving forward, but I'll continue with the quarterly reports. I also share the blocks as I finish them on Instagram, if you aren't already following me there. :-)

October

Stash Bee: Lyssa asked us to make 16.5" x 12.5" bookshelf blocks for her. In her post she shared some of her interests which I had a great time incorporating into her block. She told us, "In addition to sewing, I love gardening, baking, hiking, skiing, biking, reading, playing board games, gnomes, the beach, collecting dishes, traveling, waterskiing, and hosting dinner parties."

The Bee Hive: We made the paper-pieced Star Plus block for Laura. Yellow and navy is a great classic combination and I'm sure the finished quilt will be stunning.

do. Good Stitches: In October we made these Mosaic blocks by Patchwork Square for Diane. I love the fun scrappy look of these charm friendly blocks.

 

November

Stash Bee: For our last block of the year Bev chose the Quatrefoil block (which is actually a Bee Hive tutorial). Her colors were aqua, pink, lime green, orange, yellow and red which gave us a lot to chose from. I immediately gravitated to the yellow and pink print in my stash which I had yet to use. Since that one was a little wild, I think it paired nicely with the lime green and aqua blenders I used in the other positions.

The Bee Hive: Our November block was purple, yellow and grey Spinwheel blocks for Amanda. I love the pop of yellow, and I'm always excited to be working with purple!

do. Good Stitches: Ailish challenged us with some improv piecing this month. The theme was symbols: "anything from plus signs, Xs, asterisks, pound signs etc." And we were asked to use bright fabrics in red, orange yellow or green with a black background. I knew immediately that I wanted to make an ampersand. I quickly got my first block done. Improv hashtags are fast! But it took me quite a while to complete my ampersand. Overall I'm quite happy with it. Though I'm not sure I'd try one again! I used eight fabrics for a total of 61 pieces to make the ampersand block. I used darting, y-seams and hand piecing (for two tricky seams). I lost count the number of times I had to rip out seams and the total time spent on the block (many episodes of Once Upon a Time, thank you Netflix).

 

December

The Bee Hive: In December, Tisha chose for us to make the Houndstooth block. She picked a variety of solid colors as our inspiration and wanted our choice to be paired with a black and white print. I chose to go with the turquoise color. These blocks went together super quicky. The striped sections are paper pieced and they are easy to chain piece since they are just rectangular strips of fabric to start with. (The tutorial gives instructions for cutting these strips before piecing, which I appreciated.) A great big thank you to Tisha for running our hive this year! Next month is our last month for the 2015 bee and finally my month to be queen, but I'll be continuing for 2016 with The Bee Hive.

 

The rest of my 2015 bee blocks can be found in these previous posts: January, February, March, Q2, Q3.

Thanks for visiting! I'd love to hear if you've joined a bee for the first time 2016.

I'm linking up to Let's Bee Social.

12 thoughts on “Q4 Bee Blocks

  1. Lisa

    It's interesting to see all these different blocks. I'm in stash bee this year and I'll need to come up with a pattern so it's good to see these ones made up.

    Reply
    1. sarah

      Post author

      I had a great time in Stash Bee this year. There are so many great options to choose from. It makes deciding hard! When is your month? Thanks for visiting, Lisa.

      Reply
  2. Oh Sarah I love these Bee Blocks. I especially love the bookshelf one ...... it's now got me thinking!! I have signed up for a few Bees for 2016 and really looking forward to being part of one again. It's been a few years since I participated when I lived in New Zealand. Now let me look at that bookshelf block again!!!

    Reply
    1. sarah

      Post author

      The bookshelf one was really fun to make. You can look at the stash bee website to see the others that people made. We were in hive 1. Which bees are you participating in?

      Reply
  3. I have never joined a Bee. But seeing all your pretty blocks sure does make it tempting! Looks like a great way to keep your interest with all those great block choices. I enjoying watching your progress over on IG! Happy 2016, Sarah!

    Reply
    1. sarah

      Post author

      I think it's a lot of fun, though being in three bees in 2015 plus the swaps I participated in really cut into my time for other sewing. I'm looking forward to working on some bigger projects in 2016. :-) I find it much easier to share progress pics on IG, but I'm going to try to be consistent with a WIP Wednesday post to be sharing more process on the blog in 2016. Thanks for visiting, Lorna.

      Reply
    1. sarah

      Post author

      Thanks, Jayne. It's a great way to try something out without too much of a commitment. Some of the blocks I love and would totally make a whole quilt of them. Some, not so much. ;-)

      Reply

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