Yellow Bears Paw-- Scrap Bee from 2011!!

Hi All~
I finally made my Scrap Bee blocks into a quilt:

 The centers of each bears paw came from the members of the Scrap Bee, 2011.  (My month was March).  Thanks Ladies!  The quilt came out great.  Do you recognize your blocks?

Shapes for San-Dee (Scrap Bee)

These went in the mail today.  I shouldn't have waited til the last minute, it was tough to come up with shapes that hadn't been done yet.  But this wasy fun, I hope the blankets turn out the way you hope~

Scrap Bee leaves for Glen

My leaves for Glen will go into the mail today.  Sorry for the delay!

The curved piecing was easier than I thought, it was the piecing sequence to get the branches where I wanted them that was a bit of a challenge.  But hey, we all need challenges, that's why we PLAY.

SCRAP Bee May

Sara, 
these lakes and islands went in the mail to you today~

This was a fun and creative block.  I hope you enjoy playing with them this month~

SCRAP Bee blocks for Mary-Frances

I have been playing with my white blocks but took some time out last night to make these red & white blocks for Mary-Frances.  Hope they play nice with the others!

These were fun, I especially liked making the one slash pointy.  I've learned so much from this bee already, thanks you guys!

And white leads the way from winter into spring..

Forgive my wonky photo.  I had limited options to lay these babies out and snap a picture before my son ran in to whip them off the coffee table.  I had tried a couple of times, but I couldn't for the life of me get them to photograph well in my poorly lit (east facing) sewing room, especially on a backdrop of my Warm & Natural design wall. 
anyway, I love them.  36 wonderfully white 5.5" squares. 

Thank you so much to all the Scrap Bee ladies who sent them to me.  Opening each package filled me with surprise and delight.  That's one of the best part of online bees though, isn't it?  Getting a nice package in with all the bills and junk mail..

What's next for these you ask?  Ideas have been brewing, but I'm kind of curious to know what would you do with them?

Blocks for Jessica

I managed to get my blocks from Jessica done in the nick of time. They are on the way to her now. I hope she likes them.

Melinda

Blocks for Jessica

Jessica I made these blocks for you:

I know its getting close to the end of the month, but they are going out first thing Monday! Since you said you wanted "shades of white" to remind you of winter, I included a few Holiday/wintery pieces as well. Hope you like these!

March Scrap-Bee Blocks for Jessica

These blocks are brought to you courtesy of LeeAnn's Featherweight... she heard my cries of agony when my machine quit working yesterday and brought me a loaner. Yep, she's completely awesome as her quilts are! I pieced these to get a feel for the machine... it is a joy to sew on. Between working with a nice machine, actually being able to sew, and piecing these tranquil colors, I am one happy lady!

February SCRAP bee blocks

Here are the 5 blocks I made for LeeAnn..

Definitely a challenge-- the scrap blocks i usually play with are much smaller than this and I had several failed attempts before I figured out how to make a 6.5" block with only 5 fabrics.  My favorite is the bottom center one.  Hope she likes them too!

Scrap Bee MARCH

On Friday, things looked so promising, spring seemed so close..

 And then this morning I woke up and saw snow out my window.

March is my month for the SCRAP Bee and I had been toying with a few ideas for my blocks

but with this morning's snow, I knew exactly what I wanted. 

Let's appreciate the last few weeks of winter and make blocks in

 shades of white.

As you can see, my definition of "white" is pretty flexible so creams, beige, prints, and greys are OK. 

I even used the back side of a piece of light blue. 

One pop of color (i.e. a yellow scrap) is welcome, but please keep it tiny!

Make your block from your preferred scrap piecing method: V's 5-sided shape, free pieced, foundation pieced, paper pieced, .. whatever works for you. 
I'd like the block you send to be 5.5" unfinished and please sign and date the front. 
If you want to use freezer paper to stabilize the block before writing on it, that's fine.  I just wrote slowly..

Thanks Bee gals!

Ribbons?

I stole 15 minutes to play this afternoon.  a new idea popped up while I was working on another project and I wanted to work it out on a smaller scale.  Of course it took more than 15 minutes, but boy am I glad I played.  I'm still feeling out my new machine and getting into a groove after being away from my sewing room for 2 weeks, but this was good.  I like how these turned out..

I started with 9" blocks and added in strips, turning clockwise each time.  I think I like the look of the thinner strips, but I want to make some more and play around with color/print choice and different widths.  My original ribbon project is a mammoth 60"+ square, and I think 9" blocks may have been too small to start with.  I think i'm aiming for a 15" finished block.  Gotta keep playing...
(*subconciously influenced by Bonnie's blocks, apparently :) )

Scrap-Bee January block for V

Sorry, I had to take it out of the envelope for a pic and I didn't iron it before the photo shoot.  I also didn't square it up because I'm away from  home and my big square ruler.  Hope you like it V!!

oooh~

another night of play and E's goddess is getting cozy in her new home:

If no one takes this from me, it might end up growing on its own..
The spikes on the left came from this book and were so easy I think I need to use them in other projects soon.  The Kaffe Fassett print on the right side just fell out of the scrap bowl as I was looking for purples (it was in with the blues, but jumped out to play in this quilt).  It had a strange angled cut running along the side which I smoothed out into a gentle curve.  On the bottom I added the patch of purple strips which had been in my crumb block pile forever-- I bought it at a scrap table at a quilt show in MA.  That edge was also jagged but my curves were not so gentle here.. I like piecing curves, but i need more practice because I ended up with little puckers (you can see on the deepest bit).  The Erin McMorris turquoise just jumped in as well, I have been using that fabric in everything lately, so why not try it here too. 
It has been very freeing to work on a quilt I didn't plan on making.  I'm not worrying a lot about how to get things done and I change my mind about the layout at the last minute (the spikes were supposed to go along the top..).  I have a bunch of other projects that are waiting for me, but this has been too much fun..

30-Day challenge, days 4-6

humming right along...
Day 4: Light blue.  New technique: slashing.  I also tried adding some "larger" sized scraps.

Day 5: White.  New technique: I made two blocks and put them face to face, drew a line and stitched on either side of it, then cut it apart (the same way as if you were making HSTs).  Not so sure how I feel about it, but I thought I'd let it go and see where the challenge takes me.  I also felt more comfortable about using larger scraps.  So comfortable that i even threw in some of my favorite scraps (meaning this will have to turn into something of value some day..)

Day 6: Purple.  New technique:  more slashing, and I actually set a TIMER for 15 minutes.  Haha, when it went off I was no where near done playing, but I let myself stitch for 10 additional minutes and then stopped. 

I took everything else off the design wall and this is how the challenge blocks look so far..

Challenge accepted~

V's 30 day challenge seems like just the thing I need to warm myself up before trying any more crumb log cabins.. so I've been spending 15 minutes (or so) each night..

Day 1: Green.  New technique--  wavy seam.  (up the center, it's just slightly wavy, but can you see it?)

Day 2: Pink.  New technique-- umm.. i was going to slash it, but i liked it at this point, so i stopped.

Day 3: Red.  New technique-- slashing and adding a strip. 

With nice piles of scraps arranged by color it's easy to just grab a bin and make one block before bedtime.  I want to sort out my other scraps stashed away though, because I know I have more fabric to play with..

you pushed me

creatively, of course.  I got all excited about the 2nd Bee coming up and thought I better get back to playing so I have a decent project idea by the time my month rolls around.  lately I've been trying out monochrome blocks to force myself to think more about color and value, contrast and lack of contrast.. it's been fun.  things don't always turn out the way I thought they would.
anyway, here's what I came up with today.

 A log cabin-ish block made by "making" strips of color.  Felt good to dig through those tiny tiny scraps and find the right one.