Big Bee Progress

Its almost time for the Canadian Quilters Association's annual conference and the Big Quilt Bee. I talked about this initiative in an earlier post. Quilters across Canada (and beyond) have really stepped up to make this happen. (in case you did not know...the goal is to make and donate 1,000 quilts for kids at Ronald MacDonald house)
The Big Quilt Bee will be held June 14-17, 2017 at Quilt Canada 2017 in Toronto, ON., there will be sewing machines, long arms, mid arms and an LOTS of volunteers ready to work on the quilt tops and blocks sent in by hundreds of Canadian quilters and judging by the number of finished quilts already received, it does appear that goal is sure to be achieved. You may have seen the graphics popping up on social media over the past few months.
I had the distinct pleasure of creating the "hive" being used as the count down (count "up")

I was initially asked for a thermometer type graphic to show the progress as the count of finished quilts climbed....since it is the Big Quilt Bee, this is what I came up with......this little black and white doodle.

Then colour and numbers were added to allow the graphic to change as the numbers go up (all done digitally on my iPad using Concepts app)

The most recent count has reached 800

What will the final count Bee?

Selecting Fabrics

Have you ever found yourself at a workshop, class or simply a sewing day with friends when you realized that the fabric you brought, is not right for the project you are working on?
Obviously we cant travel with our entire stash....so these situations require a little bit of planning.

A few of us are to meeting up soon to spend a day putting together some blocks for CQA's Big Quilt Bee. Here is how I decided what I would take.
1st up, fabrics that were created to celebrate Canada's 150th Birthday ( a required element in each block)

These fabrics have blacks, beige/yellows, greys, browns, & reds.  So, next I looked to see if I had a print that had all or most of those colours and dug out this floral.

then, I began pulling fabric scraps containing similar colours with a variety of texture and different sized prints. (many of these fabrics are oddly shaped, leftover bits from previous projects)

it is hard to see from this pile, but I have pulled from fairly light to fairly dark in each grouping.. Below, you can get the idea of how they look when they are sent off to play with each other

Since the blocks are created using a free pieced, sort of liberated technique, I figure if all the fabrics play nice together in the pile......the finished block should be cohesive and have eye appeal.....at least...that is my hope   :-)

A short video of how to make these "slab" blocks can be viewed here

Making a "Slab" block

In an earlier post, I talked about having had the privilege of designing a "Bee" for The Canadian Quilter's Association to use in promoting The Big Quilt Bee ( an initiative with a goal of creating 1,000 quilts for kids at Ronald MacDonald Houses across Canada)

The quilts will be made up of slab blocks.....having never made one myself, I thought I should give it a go.  oh my.....they are quick and fun to do....and yes...perhaps even a little addictive as well.

I decided to document the process of one of them and create a short video showing just how quick, fun and easy these block are to make.....plus it is a great way to use up bits and pieces in your stash!

 Learn more, join in and become a part of The Big Quilt Bee here