"It's The Stupidest Tea Party I Was Ever At" Said Alice

Super, super excited to share April's NYC Metro MOD Quilt Guild Bee Block with you, I'm just loving the challenge set by
Queen Bee Emily N.

The Bee Block package included a piece of green cotton and instructions to create an applique block on the theme of 'Tea'.  Emily is obviously a girl after my own heart and tells us she's obsessed with tea.  We can use any fabrics from our stash as long as we use the green fabric somewhere in the block and Emily suggests to applique items such as cups & saucers, mugs, tiered cake stands, teapots and more.

It doesn't get any better for this English girl abroad, immediately I knew what I was making - it just had to be a teapot and rather than sketching my own to save time I pulled this teapot image by Colleen from her blog justpaintit.

Pulling fabrics was easy - 

in my stash I had this scrap of British Icons: London by Timeless Treasures and then I pulled some Olive the Ostrich pink heart fabric by Laurie Wisbrun.  A multi dot (C3095 White) fabric from the Timeless Treasures Indian Summer collection is absolutely perfect to link the colours together with the given green which I'm going to use as the background fabric for the finished block.

I've an idea to include some of my Queen's Guard ribbon (Berisfords Ribbons - The Best Of British Art 13605 Soldiers) and a strip of Alice in Wonderland cotton twill ribbon too.

The strip of Alice ribbon was given to me by Dee, one of my Late Night Sewing students,

she's used it in my classes to make tea cosies for a couple of her friends and she gave me this piece.  This seemed like the perfect time to use it, thanks Dee xxx

Here's a look at one of Dee's tea cosies too, isn't it fab?

 Back to making the block, here we go, step by step:

I cut the image into sections - I'm not going to use the lid handle so I didn't cut that bit out;

I transferred each section onto the paper side of the Pellon Wonder Under fusible web Emily provided being sure to draw the pieces back to front so the final applique will come out the correct way round;

I pressed each piece of Wonder Under on to the appropriate fabrics

and cut the pieces out.

Emily asked for a 9.5" block so I placed the pieces under a 9.5" square ruler to see how best to lay them out.  I'm opting for a blown apart design, having gaps between each section leaves the background fabric visible and pulls the colours together more.

With the placement decided I marked the outline of the block and the pieces on the green background fabric using a FriXion pen that'll disappear with the heat of the iron then peeled the backing paper from each piece and pressed to fix them in place.  (Be sure to test any marking pen first on a scrap of fabric first to be certain it will 'disappear' from your project - also note that FriXion pen marks are known to 'reappear' in cold temperatures.)

Before fixing the teapot lid I sewed the looped piece of Soldier ribbon in place as the handle.

With everything ironed and permanently fixed in place I freemotion scribble-stitched two or three times around the pieces and within minutes it was all done.

 I love, love, love how easy raw edge applique is and if you're interested in learning more click through to any of my other applique tutes below:

And photos of that finished block

  with a closer look at the scribble stitching,

and the tea pot lid/handle

and a peep at the back.

I've put so much of me and my home country into creating this block, I do hope Emily loves it as much as I do.

And now I think it's time for a well earned cup of tea x

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