Bee Blocks and Blocking

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee, organised by Grammie Q. The blocks for the Bee are based upon a block in the book, Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkison. I had been eyeing up the book anyway, so was delighted to have a reason to buy it. Although the book was apparently in stock when I ordered it on the Book Depository website (Amazon were showing a 3 week delivery time!) and so, I should have received it before we left the UK to come back to Riga, naturally it didn't turn up until after we had left. Fortunately, our son was able to forward it on to me, so it finally arrived in Riga last week and I was, at last, able to start on my first ever Bee blocks. What a responsibility they are!

The blocks weren't difficult but I was conscious the entire time that the finished block would be subject to the scrutiny of someone who has probably been sewing longer than I have, and is so much more accurate than I am (even although the chosen block does not call for accuracy!). The colour for this month's blocks is yellow, and even that was a cause for anxiety - does yellow with multi-coloured dots count as yellow? As you can see I decided it didn't, but having looked at some of the blocks in the Flickr Group other Bees made a different decision. I am sure that once I have got a few blocks under my belt, I will be more relaxed about the whole thing, at least I hope so!

I have also joined the Star of Africa Bee, where we are producing blocks that represent our country or culture, even more scope for anxiety I suspect :) They are next on my to-do list.

Now that I have mastered (!) crochet flowers, I have been having a go at more of the projects in my "Cute and Easy crochet" book. I have made a start on the stripy cushion with my various shades of pink yarn and have just finished the front, although with all the yarn changes there are an awful lot of ends to be sewn in. In the meantime I tackled the purse project from the book, with a ball of variegated yarn that I had bought for no apparent purpose a while ago. I hope that I am not the only one who does that!

The crochet was mainly straightforward, although the flap front is more uneven than it should be and looks a much smoother curve in the book than mine turned out to be. The pouch was the perfect size for the variegation in the yarn, which was a pleasant surprise, and the actual crochet worked up very quickly.

I had the perfect fabric for the lining in a FQ that I won in Jenna's Sew Happy QAL, so was delighted to find such a good use for it. I have never blocked a piece of crochet before and was surprised to find that even although the book is aimed at beginners and gives comprehensive instructions on crochet stitches, there are no instructions on how to block a crochet piece. Given the nature of several of the projects in the book, cushions, bags, throws, etc., and the fact that the instructions for this project state that the crochet should be blocked, I would have expected some basic instruction at least. Fortunately a quick Internet search provided the necessary information. I get so annoyed when books and patterns for beginners assume a level of knowledge that I don't have!

The Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop organised by Plum and June is really picking up a head of steam now, there have been some great projects already and some great advice for new (and not-so-new!) bloggers. This week's posts will be from 

Tuesday, June 19

    Jennifer from Sewlandia

    Nicole from Mama Love Quilts
Thursday, June 21

    Suzanne from SuzClaas

    Mina from Kindaquilty

Jennifer's Flower Quilt is lovely, Suzanne is hand stitching away like nobody's business and Nicole's EZ Dresden Table Runner is seriously gorgeous, I am really looking forward to seeing what they come up with for the Blog Hop! Mina is a fellow challengee (is that a word?) in the In the Bag Ugly Fabric challenge and I am so pleased to read that she is also still looking for inspiration, I am not alone!

Finally,  I will post more photos of our recent trip soon but just to show that patchwork patterns pop up everywhere, this is one of the roofs on the Church of the Spilled Blood in St Petersburg, I thought you might like it!

I am almost tempted to join in the Hexy MF QAL going on at I'm a Ginger Monkey!

Linking up to Manic Monday, Sew Modern Monday,