Blogger's Quilt Festival :: HST Love {Group/Bee Quilt}

In looking back over the quilts I'd made in the last several months, I chose HST Love to share for the Blogger's Quilt Festival because I love how it turned out, and I'm darned proud of it.

It was created with the help of my bee-mates of FAITH Circle of the charity bee do.Good Stitches. I asked them each to make two 18 1/2" blocks consisting of four 9 1/2" half-square triangle blocks. Our fabric of choice was cool solids with medium gray and white, and blocks were made up in a variety of configurations .

I confess I love big blocks, and yes, it made this quilt a cinch to piece together. Which was ok, as it was the quilting that really took some time. I selected a diagonal path down through the quilt, and then echoed that with straight-line quilting at 3/4" intervals. Aurifil 50wt was my thread choice throughout, light gray for piecing and white for quilting.

There were enough blocks to piece a colorful backing. (Note this photo was taken after the quilt was washed and crinkly - oh, the softness!)

A scrappy binding seemed to be in order, so I chose several cool and gray solids to piece together.

This happened to be my first quilt as a quilter for do.Good, after 18 months as a stitcher. Of course, that's one of the reasons this quilt was such a joy. And after admiring similar hst quilts across the internet, it was a special pleasure to finally create one myself. The quilt finished at 54"x72", and was delivered to FAITH Circle's current charity, Restore Innocence, which helps young women who have been rescued from human trafficking. A fitting finish to a satisfying process.

My previous entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival:

The Stars of Summer, 10/26/12

Hopscotch, 5/19/12

Mango Revisited, 10/28/11

Supernova, 5/13/11

Linking up with the Blogger's Quilt Festival in the Group or Bee Quilts category.

May Bee Blocks

After cutting it close on timing with my bee blocks last month, I really hoped to get them taken care of in good time this month. So that's been this week's first order of business.

I figured I'd take care of what I perceived as the hardest first - the Anna Marie Horner feather requested by Susan/PatchworknPlay of Mid-Century Modern. I loved her choice of color - orange and turquoise  and I was able to find enough scraps in my basket to use each fabric just once. Good news: this wasn't hard at all! And it's big - finishing at 9 1/2"x17"!


Next up was FAITH Circle. Tackling Debbie/Blue.Ridge.Girl's scrappy triangles by Film in the Fridge meant another foray into the scrap basket, which was awesome - it is still SO full! These blocks finish at 6.5"x9", so we each are making 4.


Considering it's my month for the Always Bee Learning Bee - which is coming along quite nicely, thank you - all I had left was That Stash Bee. Blueberry Patch Cathy asked for depression blocks. I had made these blocks once before, but very colorful and scrappy, so it was quite a switch to make them with gray and black. (We were told to "think black and white tv!") So many of my favorite fabrics in this set.


So that's it for this month - yay! Cross those off the list.