Cairo Star and Loveliness

Instead of being reasonable and sewing together a block I've seen before I decided to make one up. All of that extra time we all have lying around. I'm linking up to Lovely Year of Finishes as my 3x6 Bee Blocks are my goal to complete in October and with the Quilt Photography Workshop.

This is Cairo Star, the completed block. The blue parts I think can look checkerboard or diamond-like.

These looked like sunbursts to me. For the Workshop the subject is 

"Something That Makes Me Smile."

 (The workshop is a series intended to expand and explore your photographs of sewing. There are challenges to complete, or encouragements to follow, to learn about and share our skills.) 

"My Sewing Process"

One part of the design was slightly off so I had to redraft it, after I printed all of them out...

"Frustration"

As I was sewing another block up I laid out the pieces and saw a pharaonic Storm Trooper. My dear friend who lives in Cairo, Egypt was on my mind as well, so that's why this block is called the Cairo star. I thought Cairo Pharaoh/Sphinx Star Wars Storm Trooper Star was too long a title :)

"Imagine"or "Things That Make Me Laugh"

And lastly, I also really like this star flipped on it's side. The hourglass shapes created in the middle are intriguing to me and it almost seems to have more sparkle in the white octagon. 

I may decide to share the block pattern, after I rework it, if you are interested in the design. 

P.S. I already got a tip from one of the other bloggers to upload to Flickr first then link the photos to your blog. This was one of the subjects we covered in our HTML Sewing Summit Class by Jeni Baker of In Color Order that I almost forgot about already. I'll have to try it. 

Month Sucker

I got a cold in April. It's now May. Besides doing my taxes, being a mediocre friend and keeping my house clean, the whole of April was pretty much a wash. Only one hive of my bee-mates got their blocks on time, I forgot to post about the Lovely Year of Finishes finish and to set a goal for May. So here are my unofficial goals for May: sew more-I love doing it, bike at least 5 times-I love doing this as well, porch sit, blog more-even if its just from my phone and I can't control where the pictures are oriented (obsessed much?) and definitely not least-appreciate friends by being an awesome friend to them.

That shouldn't be too hard right?

So in keeping with the new goal of blogging by phone when necessary, here are my second set of 3x6 Mini Quilt Bee blocks for the solids hive (and see what fun designs popped up when I folded them to mail them?!) :

3x6 Possible Paper Piece Pattern

There are a ton of paper piece patterns out in the interwebs. I was having a hard time deciding what I wanted to make for my 3x6 Sampler Mini Quilt Bee group, so I sketched and came up with this:

When I started sewing it together I thought it looked a bit like an owl.

No? Just me? The owl thought reminded me of the page 28 Project Quilting with Persimon Dreams. Every week you are given an inspiration and have to make a quilted project before the next Monday. I always think I'm going to enter but then get pulled off in other directions. The first magazine I found in my room was sitting on my bookcase and this was page 28. 

I could make a Tula pink and aqua eagle! White bits of Kona left over from the Stitched in Color/Intrepid Thread challenge would make excellent feathers. Now if only I had more than one day to work at it, I might give it a go. Oh well, no aqua sketch beak for me.

I think the white square in the middle is a bit oversized so when I make the block for my bee mates I'm going to increase the small (aqua sketch) square. As for this particular one, I like all the fabrics separately but I'm not sure they all work to their best in this configuration. I still like 'em though! Not bad for a first try. Above are the set of fabrics cut out earlier that evening but when they were next to each other I thought they were a bit dull.  So I pulled out the Tula and Nicey Jane to liven it up. They are favorites. 

It's always fun to see what camera angles do to blocks. I'm sure there are really cool variations that can be done with traditional blocks if you just warp them a bit in an image program. Happy day to you!

January Lovely Finish Goal: 3 x 6 Bee Blocks

I've been sewing about here and there making practice blocks for the 3x6 Bee being run on Flickr. There were also many many drawings done. I think I've settled on this idea with a few tweaks: Mod-Morse Code Bee Block. It spells out Quilt in Morse code! I think that's so fun. The color bits need to be moved a tad right and the elements shifted up and down a smidge but I think it'll be the one. Unless my hive doesn't care for it. Then I'll do one of these:

My bee blocks also are my Lovely Year of Finishes Goal for January. There's a hard due date of the 15th for these.