Save the Bees

Block #4 - Pieced Bee

Are you sewing along with the Save the Bees quiltmakers?!?


Today we are sharing block #4, which is ... a pieced BEE! Hop over to designer Jacquelynne's site to learn how to get your free copy of the instructions - click here.
My bee doesn't have her antennae yet, which will be made from black floss and 2 black buttons.
Of course the BEE block is the star of this quilt and it was sooo fun to sew. It looks like it would be paper pieced, but it's not. The bee is constructed in rows, and while I would describe it as a "challenging" pattern in terms of difficulty, the instructions are excellent and if you follow each step as written, your bee will come out perfectly!

The hardest part is the HST blocks, which stands for "Half Rectangle Triangle". These are tricky for me and although we have made them in previous blocks, I have to read the instructions, complete each step, and then compare my sewn pieces to the diagrams to make sure it looks right. 


Seriously, I put the sewn pieces beside the instructions and look at it several times. It goes against my old quilter's brain to not match up the edges of the pieces before sewing or cutting.
It never looks right to me, but it IS right!!

You can see many more bee blocks on social media (#SaveTheBeesQuilt) and on Jacquelynne's facebook page, where I recently saw this posting. 
Save the Bees!

Save the Bees - Blocks 1 - 4

Here are my 4 blocks on the design wall. It's coming together even better than I had hoped!!
Next month step #5 will show us how to get these blocks sewn together into a quilt top.
I invite you to visit all the featured blogs to see their wonderful bee blocks and to enter the draws on each blog:

• The Crafty Quilter
• Podunk Pretties
• The Quilting Nook
• The Sewing Loft
• Flamingo Toes
• Kathy's Quilts (that's me!)
• Freemotion by the River
• A Quilting Life

The very exciting prize for this month is an assortment of OLFA products! Believe me, you want to win this prize!


The draw is open to international entries and a huge thanks to OLFA for including all quilters in this draw because as we know, international postage is very expensive. The draw will be held at the end of the day on Nov. 11 (one prize per person per month).

To get your name in the draw, scroll to the end of this post, click on the word 'comments' and tell me your favourite OLFA product. I do love their rotary cutters and mats and use them exclusively, but my current favourite is the folding cutting mat. 

OLFA also sent this gift package to the featured bloggers earlier this year and this is how I learned about the folding mat.
Have you tried it? It folds up to be portable and is perfect to take to retreats and classes. When you lay it out flat, you can't see or feel the wavy fold and you have a large cutting mat to use. (No affiliation to OLFA, just a very loyal customer)

***Addendum...
Comment #2 (from a possible 141 comments) was drawn for the OLFA prize which is Cathy of Big Lake Quilter fame. 

I don't think I posted last month's winner for the Aurifil prize. That winner was comment #155 which was Val from Val's Quilting Studio.