A very special New to Me!

Welcome to another New to Me link party. In my part of the world September is traditionally the month for starting new activities and taking up new hobbies, so plenty of opportunity for lots of New to Me's :)

In keeping with that New to Me feeling in the air I have joined a new patchwork group, who are making lap quilts for wheelchair bound local children. The final quilts will be 39" square and seemed to be the perfect excuse to use up some Bee blocks that have been hanging around my sewing room.

So, in no time at all here is my first quilt top for the group! Now that kind of speedy turnaround of a project is most definitely New to Me :)

I have enough blocks from the Scrappy Trip Along Bee to make one and, perhaps, two more quilt tops so it looks like the Christmas deadline for the quilts will be a breeze to meet!

You have already seen my New to Me recycled shirt quilt

 but I forgot to show you the back of the quilt.

I used a cute bunny flannel that was in my stash. It was the first time that I had used flannel to back a quilt, but it was straightforward to stitch up so I will definitely be using it again. If I had more to hand I might have used it to back the lap quilt for the charity group, but I don't so I will have to see what else I can come up with.

Of course, our most special New to Me this month was this gorgeous little man!

We are heading back down his way for more cuddles soon, and can't wait to see him!



So that's my New to Me's this month, now it is your turn to share the highs and lows of trying out something for the first time. As ever please help to spread the word by linking back to this post in your post and/or adding the blog button to your sidebar.








Check out the other links too and, maybe, leave an encouraging comment along the way. The emphasis of this link party is to celebrate the trying so a little encouragement here and there would not go amiss! 
The link will remain open until 23.59GMT on September 30th, so you have some time yet to try something new and link up and join the party :)


If your New to Me involves a Christmas or Holiday make then don't forget to link it up at this month's Ho, Ho, Ho and on We Sew Link Party over at Sandra Sews :) You could be the lucky winner of this great pattern!

Looking forward to seeing what you have tried this month.

An InLinkz Link-up

Dicing with deadlines!

Months ago I signed up for the fourth round of the

The deadline for sending out the blocks for this round is April 15th. Needless to say I have left making my blocks until the last minute!

As ever the requests for the blocks are a great test of my stash. This quarter the requests included

Jewel tones,

Bright, bold saturated colours

and bright, happy colours!

I hope these hit the mark :)

Can't wait to see what wings my way too. I think with one more round, which signs up on May 1st, I will have enough to make a quilt!

Linking up to

Back in the groove

The deadline for the fourth Round of the Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee is fast approaching, and the first of my blocks from my fellow Bees in Hive 4 arrived in the post this week.

This great block from Maureen in Michigan was a timely reminder that I needed to get into gear and start whipping up those blocks.

So with my trusty Sizzix machine in hand I have started slicing up 2.5" strips for my blocks.

One of the challenges for me with Bees is selecting the fabrics, it always takes me ages to finally decide. This time around though I am making blocks for two Bee mates that I have already made for in previous rounds, so in theory that should make the decision making process a bit easier. We shall see if that turns out to be true :)

One block down, four more to go!

Linking up to

Testing my stash again.

Today is the deadline for sending out blocks for Round 3 of the Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee. Needless to say these blocks were completely ignored in the run up to Christmas, so putting these blocks together was very last minute!

Again the requests for the blocks were a real test of my stash, but I think I managed to meet them, just :)

First up a request for black and white blocks with one strip being a colour but not a solid.

The black and white face fabric was a sale purchase before Christmas, which was intended for something else entirely!

Then an easy one, shades of green

This request was bright, bright, bright! I hope it is bright enough :)

Another straightforward one, blue, aqua, orange and teal.

 And finally the toughest test of all, French General fabrics and/or colours of which there were surprisingly few in my stash. Fortunately my LQS had a couple of FQ's of French General fabrics, the red, text and brown so once they were in my basket I was good to go.

These blocks are surprisingly quick to make and it is definitely fun seeing how the various fabric choices change the look of the block.

The next round sign-ups opens on February 1st, you can find details of the Bee here if you fancy testing your stash out too.

Linking up to

  

Testing my stash

A few months ago I signed up for the Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee and duly sent off my blocks for the first round. As I enjoyed making the blocks so much, even with the planned and unplanned seam ripping, I carried on making blocks that ended up in a quilt for my son and his fiancee.

 

Round 2 of the STAW Bee kicked off at the beginning of this month so we were allocated a new set of swap partners, with a whole new set of fabric likes and dislikes! This round the brief for the blocks in my hive ranged from jewel tones to low volume with bright and fun thrown in for good measure :)





I hope these fit the bill!









They were certainly a real test of my stash fabrics!

So with all of my blocks for this round done and dusted, another box can be ticked on my list! 

If you have joined a Bee for the first time this month or tried a new block then don't forget to link up to 

the Link Party is open until August 31st

Linking this finish to Crazy Mom Quilts

Scrappy Tripping

Having promised myself that I would not sign up for anything else, what did I go and do? You guessed it - signed up for another Bee! The Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee to be precise.

So I have been making blocks like this over the weekend.

The Bee requirements are not that onerous, which was one of my reasons for signing up :) There are 6 Bees in each Hive, and we will be sending out one Scrappy Trip Around the World block to each Bee member every quarter. That doesn't sound so bad now does it.

The blocks are made using the tutorial from Quiltville and they are really quick to put together, so once I had made one in next to no time I had made all 5.

Bright modern fabrics for this one

 

Low volume for these two

Aqua's and green's for this one.

I would have said that I had very little in the way of low-volume fabric in my stash, so I was surprised to find that I could come up with two low-volume blocks with ease.

The blocks were so straightforward to put together, that I kept going after I had finished the Bee blocks. Having rejected several ideas for a quilt for my son and his new fiancee that is one of my Q2 finishes (hopefully!) I decided that a Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt would fit the bill perfectly.

 

So, now have this large pile of strips to get to grips with. It is progress but that is about all I can say for it at the moment :)

 It has been a while since I looked at my WIP list, so here is how it is looking now

• In Color Order HST BOM - quilting started!
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 18 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (only 2 more to go!)
• Sunday Morning Quilt Bee blocks received
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee blocks sent (on schedule)
• Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (3 months behind schedule)
• Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee - First round blocks completed 
• And And Sew On BOM - four blocks completed (one behind schedule)
• Crafty Cooks Apron and Recipe Swap  - COMPLETED AND SENT
• Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition entry    COMPLETED - VOTING ENDS TODAY
• Son's quilt - pattern decided, fabric cut
• Paris Cushion - extra fabric ordered

So that's my progress looking forward to seeing yours.

Linking up to WOW