Bees and WIP's

Midsummer's Eve is a big celebration in Latvia so when I was looking for inspiration for my first block in the Star of Africa Bee for June, it seemed ideal to try and think of something that might represent the holiday. The celebrations associated with Midsummer have their roots in pagan times, so revolve around being in the country and include such things as washing your face in the morning dew (apparently good for the skin, but I have yet to try it!) and eating a special cheese containing caraway seeds (much more my style).

During the festivities, which involve lots of singing and dancing, young girls wear national costume and flower garlands in their hair. The celebrations also involve leaping over fires and drinking beer, as you can imagine very painful injuries are not uncommon! You can see photos of the costumes here

I decided to make my first Bee block a representation of these flower garlands using EPP hexagons to represent the garland. We were asked to make an 8.5" block so the garland was necessarily small, next time I think I might try a Dresden plate block as I have just bought an Ez-Dresden ruler and can't wait to try it out:)

I am waiting to find out whether we should add a signature to our blocks before sending this off.

As I was in the mood for Bee blocks I decided to get the July blocks for the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee sorted too. This month the colour for the blocks is blue, which I was fairly sure I had plenty of scraps in, and it turned out I was right.

Although these blocks are very straightforward to do, they seem to take me much longer than they should and I have now realised why!

This very untidy bag is what I plough through every time I am looking for scraps! I really need to do something with them, so I am looking for ideas. How do you organise your scraps so that you don't spend more time than you need to looking for that piece of brown fabric that you know is there somewhere?

Don't forget to check out tomorrow's posts in the Lets Get Acquainted Blog Hop from Sarah  and Catherine

As it is Wednesday again, here's how my current project list looks
Completed projects

• Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart, Orange and Reindeer cushions
• Orphan Block needle roll, Pieced Arc Tea towel, Purse and Padded Hangers Tutorial
• Sunflower and Sew Happy QAL quilt
• Play mini-quilt challenge quilt 
• Patchwork Block Bag  
• Dragon Bag

Ongoing

• 6 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM 
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• 8 Zakka-style SAL projects completed
• First border of teatime quilt completed
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 12 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (on schedule)  
• Yellow rainbow cushion waiting to be appliqued 
• In the Bag Ugly Fabric challenge fabrics arrived waiting for inspiration!
• 4 Summer Quilt Bee blocks completed
• 1 Star of Africa Bee block completed

Waiting

• Indigo and violet rainbow cushions
• Last block of Sampler quilt
• Amy Butler bag
• Bag Making Bible Fashionista Bag
• Christmas mini quilts 

At long last my waiting list is getting smaller! Hope you are having a productive week too.

Happy July 4th too!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday