Modern Irish {Scrappy} Bee: September Block

So, no sleeps now until it is my turn to be queen bee in the Irish Modern Quilt Guild Stash Bee. Big excitement, this is my first time in a bee and to be a bee mama. First though I will tell you a little about myself. I have always sewn and knitted, dolls clothes when I was little, my mum and I used to make things together. Then I progressed to making clothes and altering clothes, that's when I was young and slim. When the children were small and knitting went out of vogue, I took up quilting. That was great for ten or so years, but I felt stultified by the quilting rules and it seemed too fussy as my home became more contemporary. In the meantime I discovered my love of genealogy, gardening, scrap booking  and drinking wine. In between times I read books, lots of books, and baked occasionally.

 Eventually I came back to quilting, I love this modern style and the new clean lines of contemporary quilting. (mind you, my house reminds me of  Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray - the house has clean lines but the roof space and cupboards are bursting at the seams). I'm in my mid 50s and married a long long time. Our children are all grown up now, my sons (twins) live in the States and in England and my daughter has come home from England. Alan and I have gone from 5 to 3 to 2 and back again to 3.  I am lucky enough to work part time, in a library (books and talking to people - what's not to like?) so have taken up the sewing again.  So that's me, just to add I have loved being part of this online community and watching what you all sew! Now on to the bee.

After much thought, excitement, trepidation and tossing and turning I have decided on wonky crosses. Not too difficult when the school term begins again with all that entails for most of you, and not too difficult for my first tutorial!

I would like you to do 4 wonky cross squares and one teeny tiny wonky cross as a signature square. For this quilt I would like to you use kona (or equivalent) in a strong bright colour.

Think happy :)
Think LOUD
Think bright

For the wonky cross itself, I would like another bright strong colour, a contrast at least, a colour clash would be brilliant. I would prefer, please, no florals for this. I would love circles, squares, lines or a pattern made from strong lines like my pink wee wander trees. The end result will be bright, modern, cheerful. A quilt to make your heart sing. Now for the method.

Cut a 10.5 square of background fabric and make a diagonal cut from the top to the bottom. Take a strip of 1 to 2" wide of your contrast fabric and sew it to each side of the cut. Leave an inch or so of the strip proud at the top and edge the right hand piece of fabric up slightly.

Next make a diagonal cut from left to right (don't do what I did and fold the fabric and cut - it makes and arrow shape, not what we want at all!) Take the second strip and sew to the first bit and then the second. The tricky bit is to keep the two sides matched up. A little sticking in pins and shuffling around helps.

Don't worry about trimming off the squares, I will do it. Obviously the size of the finished square will depend on the width of the cross. When I get them all I will cut them all to size. I would also like you to make me one small square with a 4" square as the base square, and then sign it. If you really feel the love you please feel free to make more than one miniature square!

I first saw this square on the Bee Blessed blog, and I made 4 squares for Judith and Sarah at the time, and I loved how their final quilt turned out. Judith had kindly allowed me link to their tutorial. If you don't already know Bee Blessed they are a great bunch who make quilts for the needy in the community. Worth supporting if you can, and I know lots of us do.

Well, when I first joined this Bee, as a latecomer, in February, the advice I got was "just breathe". I am still "just breathing", have nearly survived my first year, and hope to take part again next year if you'll have me.

Helen x