Four Hands Are Better Than Two

This is what my to-do list looked like at the start of the weekend. I know you have heard (well read) me say before that sometimes I feel like I get so far behind on bees, quilt a longs, and sewing projects that it looses a little bit of the fun. Okay lets face it a lot of the fun. Yesterday I got to go to visit my mom and dad and I spent most of the day sewing with my mom. I think she was planning on working on some of her own projects. But my mom just took a paper piecing class and since I don't paper piece and the blocks for Bee Stitched for August were sent with a nice little paper piecing pattern I quickly talked my mom into showing me what she had learned. Of course my mom didn't raise a fool so after those blocks were done I taught my mom how to make a Spider Web Block. Selfishly I was also getting something else checked off my list at the same time. All in all I managed to finish (with the help of my mom) 10 bee blocks this weekend. Let me tell you it feels great to be crossing into the almost caught up zone. Here's a look at what that to-do list looks like now.


I don't want to overwhelm you guys by sharing all of those bee blocks at once so lets go slow okay. First you might remember these blocks from this post. Since we had a little mix up with some fabric being sent to a member who previously dropped out of Bee Stitched I had the pleasure of making two extra blocks after the fabrics were rerouted. This time I choose a pinwheel pattern for the middle of one block and a very easy paper pieced block for the middle of the other. I think I am just determined to learn to do it at this point so that I can say I know how. As of today I am still not a fan.


Next up lets take a look at those blocks my mom so willingly helped me with. For August Mary requested that we make these wonky blocks. She thought the directions were a little confusing so to make it easy she drew up a paper piecing pattern. To me that only made it seem more difficult but when I tried to think of how to do it free form that wasn't really clicking in my brain either. Here's what we ended up with.


They aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination and even though the pattern used was the same for all 3 blocks they are all different as I compensated for mistakes. If you look close you can even see where I pieced a small scrap there on the side because I cut the fabric to short. Lucky for me that will be in the seam allowance of the block but I wanted to fill the space to make it easier for Mary. More on the rest of the blocks coming soon.


PS: My dad also got in on the action by measuring an marking fabric triangles for a second set of Spider Web Blocks as well. Big thanks to both my mom and dad for helping me get caught up on things in the sewing part of my life.