House Stories

March is my month for the 1 Year 12 Quilts quilting bee. I love houses in quilts so I'm asking the ladies in the bee to make house blocks that represent them. They will all have the same blue sky, but the houses will be all different kinds of sizes, colors, and styles. I'm excited!

I've made two house blocks so far.

I'm planning to make one block for every house I have lived in. These two blocks were actually made with the same house in mind. The first real house Mr. Wonderful and I lived in after we got married. Before this house we had lived in apartments.

This is the actual house just a couple weeks before we moved into it.

It was small and old and in a not very nice neighborhood. There was an oil refinery just half a block south of us and a very large and busy railyard about two blocks north of us. We were quite literally on the wrong side of the tracks. But it had a nice big flat yard and two huge trees in front. We really did enjoy our time there.

But that house is no longer there. The city we lived in made plans to re-align and expand the street next to it and even put in a greenway running along the new street. Our house was in the way. I was pretty sad when I first heard about it. But it turned out to be a great thing. It came at just the right time for us. And we got a great deal!

I'm trying to decide now which house to sew next. Each house has it's own special stories and memories. I'm really looking forward to this quilt!

January Fabric

The Quilting Bee has started! Hooray! January is Donna's month. I got her fabric and pattern in the mail last week. I haven't had any sewing time since it came, but I'm anxious to get started on it. I'm definitely going to practice a few times before making the actual block to send to Donna. Check out the 1 Year 12 Quilts blog or Flickr group to see what her block will look like and how it's all coming together. It is a very pretty block. I can't wait to see how all the blocks look together!

1 Year, 12 Quilts

I joined a virtual quilting bee!!!

I am SOOOO excited!!!

I've seen lots of people around blogland that were participating in virtual quilting bees and I really wanted to but never could find out about one in time to join in. But then Alissa and Kristen started the Block Party Quilt Along and started a Flickr group to go with it where lots of new quilting bees could be organized.

I jumped right in!!! And now I'm part of the 1 Year, 12 Quilts virtual quilting bee with 11 other amazing ladies!

What is a virtual quilting bee? I had never heard of one until about a year ago when I got busy with blogs. Here is my basic definition. Usually 12 ladies (I have come across a couple of quilting men) make up a quilting bee. Each one is assigned a specific month. When one person's month comes they send enough fabric to make a quilt block to each of the other bee members and they also usually request a certain kind of quilt block. A log cabin block, for example. The members then make that block with the fabric they were sent and then send the completed block back to the person of the month. Then the next month someone else gets to take a turn, and so on. By the end each person will have 12 quilt blocks to make into a whole quilt. Of course, there are all kinds of variations on quilting bees, but that is basically how it all works.

1 Year, 12 Quilts will start in January. My month will be March. I've got a few ideas about what kind of block I want to request, but I don't know about fabric yet. I'm already having fun thinking about it and wondering what kinds of blocks others will choose. I can't wait to start!