My Storypeople Inspiration

I went on my guild's annual quilting retreat this week and finished lots of projects, including my Story People block for Tracy. It was way outside my usual box, but fun to stretch. I also made a block with some of the extra bits of color which I'll send along. Hope you can find a home for it!

May Fabric

Hello All (am I doing this right?)
I just wanted to let you know that I am still waiting for some more of my fabric to come in the mail- Chez Moi Boutique by Moda. I had a little and panicked in the middle of the night while I was up with my teething toddler and had to order more! I went with layer cakes and charm packs for ease. April and May are my crazy months with tons of family birthdays and graduations plus gearing up for Farmers Market.
Hope you are all enjoying better weather than us in VT the last couple days. Yesterday we had 6" of snow and there is still some left on the ground now. Yuck!

Tracy's Block

Well, this was certainly something different for me...kinda out of my comfort zone, as I tend to be more structured. So, that just means that it took me several hours to come up with this. I hope you like it. I actually enjoyed creating it. It's not like your tutorial, but I hope it's okay.

Blessings,
Jeanne

March blocks?

Hey Ladies,

I know I haven't received a couple people's blocks yet. And I haven't made my own either!

I was hoping to get the quilt put together over the next month or so. It would be great if I could have all the March blocks back by the end of April. If you can't make it by the end of April, let me know.

Shari, I've seen yours posted here and on the Flickr but they never made it to my mailbox!

Here are some smaller groupings of the blocks I've received (please ignore how dirty my carpet is! I have no idea who thought cream colored carpet was a good idea):

Thanks ladies! They all look great. I think I'm going to need to put some sashing between the blocks. What color do you think? Light pink? Ivory?

Jennifer (a.k.a. the slave driver)

Another attempt

I am trying hard Tracy, I really am. But I don't think I am able to do this!

Here is my second attempt:

It is suposed to be a person wtih their pet...

Sigh. I tried. Your blocks will be back in the mail tomorrow am!

Story People Block Tutorial for April

I have an image in my head of a strangely out of proportion soul with either a
funky sun in the sky or balloons or something.
I started randomly with the yellow and blue and sewed them together
thinking this would be part of the body somehow.

Then I added white. I know I want a lot of white space
around the colors.

Next, orange and purple.
Legs, perhaps?

But they need to be curvy, so I placed a larger white piece on top and made sure it extended past the orange by several inches so it would give me the "white space" that I was after.
Then I just cut a curve with my rotary cutter.
I discarded the small piece and took the large curved piece, put the right sides together.
Notice I folded and marked the centers first so the the curve would line up nicely.

Next, pinned the heck out of it, stitched and pressed the seam away from center.

Repeated for the other side and here we have a leg.
(Ignore the red block. I was going somewhere with it, and decided not to.)

Pink and celery.
Repeat for the second leg.

I attached the legs and the "belt" type mid-section

Decided on a turquoise body again, attaching the white.
I will square this all up later.

This is staring to look like what I had in my head.

The red block is back!

And becomes a hat - a triangle hat!
I used the half-square-triangle method here.
Next, added more white and attached it to his body/head.

This bottom could use a little attention.

I cut it, added more white and squared it up.

Next time I have a few minutes I am going to be primarily using my machine to stitch
some wavy arms, a face, and applique a sun or something.
Maybe add a bead or something to the tip of his hat.

I'll post more pics as I get them.

If you are completely not enjoying this and way out of your comfort zone, let me know.
I have some other ideas for the colors that will incorporate nicely with this idea.
This is supposed to be fun so if it is not, make sure you let me know!!!
=)
Tracy

Tracy's Block

So Tracy's fabric came in the mail yesterday, and with my daughter at Garandma's, I had time to play around with it.

This is what I came up with. I was going off the boat picture I saw.

I wanted so much to be crazy creative like the photos...but I think I missed the mark.

Tracy, what do you think? Is this what you were looking for?

Peace, Katie

Quilting Bee Blocks website/Flickr group

Hi ladies! I got an email yesterday from Erin of quiltingbeeblocks.com. She wanted to add our group to the master list of quilting bees that she is featuring on the website and in the Quilting Bee Block flickr grup too!

Here's her email:
Hi Jennifer ...

I'm Erin and I'm in charge of the quilting bee blocks group on Flickr as well as the new QuiltingBeeBlocks.com ... I was looking at your groups blocks today and saw the blocks being made with the picture printed fabrics ... what a great idea! Do you guys have a group blog or something, as I couldn't find much info on these blocks in your discussion threads. I'd love to find out more about them and possibly feature them on my new website! :)
Thanks!
Erin

I referred her here and I just checked and we are listed on her master list of groups! Make sure to join the group on Flickr and add your blocks to the group pool!
 
Hope you all are having a great week! I love going to the mailbox and getting a little present from each of you :-)

March Blocks for Jennifer

Hi Guys,

I've finished blocks for Jennifer and gotten them in the mail. I hope that they work well in the finished quilt. They were a lot of fun and gave me the opportunity to try a new technique. I wanted to make sure that they came out to the proper size, so I used freezer paper to make the templates and sew them together with the correct seam allowances. Here they are: