A Little Bit Dirty

Once again, I seem to be sewing two blocks in the one month for the Modern Quilters Ireland Stash Bee, my own fault.

First up was May block and I sewed it on Wednesday. Erin had asked for a wonky star. No problem, I could do wonky. I am good at sewing wonky. I had actually wondered how to do this, and had been thinking loosely along these lines myself. Erin designed it so much better. Erin wanted her background squares to follow along the lines of ROYGBIV. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

Erin wanted us to use 35 small squares of one colour and 1 square of white. Gulp. 35. Luckily we could repeat each fabric if we wanted. Every time I cut out loads of 2.5" squares, I think I should get a die cut for my Sissix BigShot and this time was no exception.

My first block was green. No problems, I have loads of green and it all came together with no problems.

feeling a little green

My second block was to be yellow. I have loads of yellow but not as big a load as I thought. I delved into my rainbow 5" charm swap of rainbow colours. I had been kind of squirreling these away, but needs must. This is when I found out that not all 5" squares are 5" squares. Some 5" squares are          4 7/8" squares. This means when I trim 2.5" off, expecting the other to be 2.5" it is actually a neem less. Or a nim less. I'm not sure what the word actually is. We have great conversations in our scrapbooking group about neem v nim. Any thoughts anybody?

feeling a little bit dirty 

Anyhow, the yellow was all done, and the corner block a neem/nim too short was replaced and I gave it one final iron. Damn, my iron must be dirty. Cue panic and decision to make one in pink. Cue audit of pink fabric. Decide to make blue, just as well, pink isn't in Erin's list of colours.

feeling a little blue 

In the end the blue wonky square is the one I like the best. Erin is getting all three. She can put the yellow in the backing or take a chance in the front. I do think the iron marks will come out in the wash. Or, dare I say it, with pre school twin boys careering about the house, I think there may be more dirty marks to come. Erin's blog TwinMomQuilts has been making me yearn for those days before my twin sons and daughter grew up.

the stars are out

Next up on Thursday was Cynthia's block for the same bee. Easy peasy. I can make disappearing 9 patch in my sleep, reference the SUFTUM quilt, the Antipodean baby quilt. Cynthia sent us each some bright orange batik and she wanted black on white and white on black for the other squares.

Five minutes later, we have one square.

Ten minutes later we have two squares.

Next, read instructions, to discover that both squares should be the same. I had reversed my second square. After a little chat on FB, Cynthia reassured me she was happy to have this in the mix . As usual I head off like a steamroller, do first, read instructions after. On this occasion it ended happily though as I hadn't yet sliced the squares, it would have been easy to fix. On this occasion.

A sunny glimpse in the dark

Helen x

ps I am Queen Bee in August. I'm going to enjoy being the Queen of Sheba, sorry Queen Bee. Need to get my act together now, doesn't do to be late when you are Queen of Sheba, sorry Queen Bee. I do keep saying that.