Two Finished Quilts From My First Quilting Bees
I have two finishes to show and that is always a cause for a happy dance around here. 🙂 On Sunday I finished my Rainbow Star Flower Quilt.
This was a quilt made with my bee mates in the “We Bee With It” bee on Flickr. This was my first time being in a quilting bee group. There were six members so each person made two blocks. The third block in the second row and the first block in the third row are the blocks I made. I asked for bright rainbow colours on a text background. Or, if they didn’t have text then a black or grey print on white for background. So this is what I ended up with and I think it’s quite beautiful! Two of my bee mates used Carolyn Friedlander Architextures text in white so I bound it in Architextures text on black. This is quite a small quilt at three feet by four feet. It is being used as a lap quilt in my living room.
My second Bee last year was “Bee Hive Swarm Anita” in “The Bee Hive” organized by Angie of Gnome Angel and Alyce of Blossom Heart Quilts. I was the Swarm leader for my all Canadian swarm. (There are swarms all around the world in the Bee Hive.) I finished the binding on this quilt today.
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| Houndstooth quilt by Bee Hive Swarm Anita. |
I chose the Houndstooth block and I asked for turquoise fabrics for the background and text fabrics for the houndstooths. My bee mates made me 12 blocks (one person made two) and I made eight for a total of 20. This quilt is about four feet by five feet and is a nice lap quilt to curl up under and read a book. The blocks involved simple foundation paper piecing so they all came in at the right size of 12 1/2 inches unfinished. I bound it with a teal text fabric from Lecien’s L’s Modern Basics line.
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| The back of my quilt. (Backing is from IKEA) with a quilt label with all of the Bee Members names on it. I ordered the quilt labels to be printed from Spoonflower. |
The IKEA fabric is an affordable choice for quilt backing. I bought about 7 metres of it at about $7.00 a metre when we were in Edmonton in November. I have backed several quilts with it. It’s slightly wider than quilting cotton so I did not need to piece it to back this quilt.
If you want to see more about these bee groups you can check out the hashtags #webeewithit and #beehiveswarmAnita on Instagram.
My first two bee group experiences that resulted in these very cool quilts were great! 🙂 Huge thanks go out to all of my bee-mates for making my blocks! I am so happy to have finished these up this past week so that I can start new projects guilt-free. 😉
This “Frog Pond” quilt came out in my newsletter to subscribers on May 17, 2016. Subscribe to my newsletter for a free PDF download of the tutorial plus a free pattern and quilt planning page. Watch for the “welcome email” after you sign up for all the download links.
I love both quilts! Rainbow yes! The houndstooth is a block I have always wanted to make and yours is gorgeous. The backing fabric is sooooo cool!
Beautiful!
Thank you so much Jayne! 🙂 I am so happy with these quilts. It sure was nice to have help making the blocks. Thanks for stopping by my blog to see them.
Thank you!
Oh wow! I love both of these! That IKEA backing is great too! 🙂
Thanks for sharing. Your colorful half square triange quilt is very effective. I dearly wish that the Ikea was not a $120 ferry trip away from me. They have such cool "stuff".
Two Beautiful quilts! I so love the rainbow star quilt, it is fun and so cheerful with the bright colors. TFS.
Both quilts are wonderful – congratulations!! Must go to Ikea soon.
Nice finishes! The rainbow quilt is so bright. I'd like to make one for a baby quilt.
Hi Brianna! 🙂 Thank you! Yes, this one I made is a perfect crib quilt size. The tutorial is at this link: http://ellisonlane.com/tutorials/starflower-block-tutorial
Thank you! Yes, a trip to IKEA is always a fun outing. We usually plan to spend the day. 🙂
Thank you Laurel! I am so happy with how these turned out. 🙂 Thanks for coming by to see them.
Hi Laura,
Thank you so much! 🙂 That's no fun that it costs that much to get to IKEA! When I lived in New Brunswick (Canada) there wasn't one anywhere near. I think the closest was four hours away in Halifax. I now live a two hour drive from one so that is much better. Sometimes people can order online from them. I imagine the shipping would be less expensive than the ferry ride?
Thank you Heide! Thanks for coming by to see them. 🙂 I am so happy to have them off the WIP pile and in use.
I love your rainbow star quilt. Such a pity there is no IKEA in New Zealand, I know where I'd be getting all my quilt backings from.