"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

Clicking on a image will take you to a new page of crafty goodness :)
 

     

Everything Stops For Tea

Oh, the factories may be roaring with a boom-a-lacka, zoom-a-lacka, wee,

But there isn't any roar when the clock strikes four, everything stops for tea

Jack Buchanan, 1935

Time to share a few more project photos from last year that I've found still on the camera.  This time, it's kitchen accessories - oven gloves, tea cosies and trimmed towels - last Christmas was definitely the year of the tea cosy for my kids and Mum - we all loooove our tea.

Earlier that year I made these aprons for everyone and blogged about them here

Guests, Like Fish, Begin To Smell After Three Days

For Christmas I had the idea to make everyone a matching set of kitchen accessories - this is the set I made for my eldest son's partner, Ana.

It was the first set I made and there's lots of pics of the finished pieces.

Fabrics:

"paseo de los muertos", De Leon Design Group for Alexander Henry and Belle Epoch by Kaffe Fassett.

Oops, seems I forgot to take pics of Joe and Katie's sets, though I do have a couple of phone photos that I sent to my daughter, Flicky, to show her what I was making at the time.

The Alexander Henry fireman fabric always makes me giggle.

Fabrics:
"ready for action" Alexander Henry; 'Keep it Sassy! Olive Sandwiches for Moda; and 'Labrinyth - Charcoal', Ikebana by Dear Stella
Lotta Jansdotter glimma 'Marby'; Amy Butler Alchemy 'Queen Ann's Butterflies'; and Dear Stella 'Confetti Dot - Peony'

On the phone, I found this pic of trimmed towels,

and I was surprised to discover more on the main camera too.

There's an extra towel in the pile - it's one I made for my Mum to add to her accessory set that I've already shared with you - how come I remembered to share these here and forget about the others I'd made?!!!

I did find this pic of Mum I haven't shared before, it's a great one of her wearing her apron - love this, she's so happy.   

To wrap up with that 1935 song by Jack Buchanan, I found the original version on YouTube and here it is - how very, very British!

Disclaimer: 
This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

 

Happy Flowers - A Liberated Nine Patch Semi Tute

Queen Bee Rossanna set quite some challenge with November's Bee Block.

Some months ago Rossanna asked us all to start collecting wrappers from sweets or biscuits, tea or coffee - well wrappers from just about anything ready to make her November Bee Block.  

I drink tea, lots and lots of tea, so I started saving the wrappers from my tea bags.

As November came around Rossanna sent out her instructions and fabric.

Here's the fabric - Turtle Bay in olive for the Prince Charming collection by Tula Pink.

and the gist of her instructions were:

The blocks are to be part of an enchanted garden of a quilt.

1. ... make two 8.5" totally creative, free form, liberated, nine patch blocks using greens.  Use the green fabric provided in each.

2 ... over the green nine patch blocks create awesome happy flowers from combinations of fabric (any type) and your saved wrappers.

3  ... feel free to use embellishments whatever you decide!


I wouldn't like to call what follows a tute but I have explained my process so I'm calling it a semi tute.

Pulling some green from my scrap box I discovered I didn't have that much really - plenty green with other colours but I wanted to keep the blocks just green - so this was my pretty poor fabric selection.

Next, I cut the given Tula fabric into six random pieces.

Here goes for the first block.  I sewed 3 fabrics together into a strip and trimmed, then I added another strip of 3 fabrics and then a third strip.  I cut in any direction, paying no attention to seams and joins apart from making sure I was working larger than the 8.5" required for the block so I had plenty fabric for trimming down to size.

For the second block I included much more of the given fabric and created it the same way as the first.

And that's the two liberated nine patch blocks completed.

On to the flower embellishment.  I really didn't know where to start - only that I had all these tea bag wrappers.

My instant idea is to make a flower petal from each tea bag wrapper, layer them up to create the flower, so I just go with it and start cutting a large petal from the first wrapper.  I keep one section of the fold of the wrapper in place to hold the two sides of the wrapper petal together - my thinking here is this will make the petal thicker, slightly stronger at the centre of the flower and give the petal colour on both sides.

Here's how I layered up my first flower:
Pic 1: I used extra large petals and sewed around the centre;
Pic 2: then I sewed a circle of orange/yellow netting over it;
Pic 3: added another layer of 5 petals slightly smaller than the first layer;
Pic 4: another circle of orange/yellow netting;
Pic 5: a final layer of 5 petals smaller again.; and
Large Pic: then I sewed the flower onto the block.

I finished the flower off by hand sewing two buttons on top of each other over the centre of the flower - sewing right through to the back of the block.

And for the second flower:
Pic 1: I took a piece of lime green sheer ribbon and sewed two rows of straight stitch 1/4" apart along one edge of the ribbon - I used my Bernina's maximum stitch length;
Pic 2: I knotted one end of the two rows of straight stitch together to hold that end and then pulled one piece of each thread at the opposite end which ruffles the ribbon, pulled the ends tight and knotted them;
Pic 3: I sewed the ribbon circle onto the 8.5" block;
Pic 4: As in the previous block I sewed 5 petals to the centre of the ribbon;
Large Pic: I made another ribbon circle as before and sewed it on top of the petals. 

As previously I sewed two buttons on top of each other through from the back of the block to finish the centre of the flower.

And a couple of close-ups of those flowers.

 Really wasn't sure what I was going to make for this month's Bee Blocks or how they'd turn out, I'll go as far as to say I didn't think I'd like this one at all but, as is often the way with my Bee Blocks I enjoyed the process and love the finished blocks.  My husband, Simon's thrilled the blocks are finished too, he said: "does that mean we can stop saving our tea bag wrappers now?"!

I have no idea how Rossanna is going to sew all the blocks together - the flowers we're making are going to be so fragile and I can't imagine quilting around them either.  I'm guessing it's going to be an art quilt as, again, it's too fragile to use and can't be washed.  When I know more I'll share it with you, in the meantime, you can check out all the other blocks as they're made here on my Quilty - Happy Flowers Liberated Nine Patch Blocks Pinterest Board.


And you can click this button below to see all of my NYC Mod Quilt Guild Bee Blocks and Challenge Blocks/Quilts.



Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

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