May Theme – Rose Garden

A rose garden theme proved to me more difficult than I thought it would. Many of the paper-pieced patterns I looked at were already used. I decided on an easy appliqué pattern, but I didn’t think that the colours we were given showed off the flower as well as it might have. I used some stitching lines to highlight the petals and the leaf, but they don’t show up very well.

April Theme – Ocean

When I saw the theme for the box I thought it would be simple. But when I saw what everyone else had done I knew I had to up my game a bit. I searched for ocean quilt blocks but didn’t find anything that caught my attention. When I was logging into a website, one of the ads had a diver swimming across the page. I couldn’t find a diver silhouette that I liked, but I did find a mermaid that I adapted for this piece.

March Theme – Tea Time

Now this was a theme I didn’t mind dealing with. One of my first quilting projects was a wall hanging for Diane and it included one of these appliquéd tea pots. Once I got the first piece done correctly (and it took a couple of tries) I was able to finish it quite quickly.

 

February Theme – Pumpkins

 

This was a little out of season for February. Most of the blocks had already used an appliquéd pumpkin of some sort, so I made a disappearing four patch block. The colour choices could have been better as the centre patch doesn’t show up very well.

 

January Theme – Bras

 

I knew this box was in the mix, and I really hoped I would never get it. Now that I’ve had it, I’m really hoping I don’t win it back in the draw!

 

December Theme – Christmas Tree

 

Perfect timing for this block!

 

 

 

November Theme – In the Garden

 

My newly-acquired obsession with English Paper Piecing was put to work for this block.

 

 

 

October Theme – Butterflies

I loved the fabric and didn’t expect to have any problem with making a butterfly. I picked a pattern I hadn’t made, but it was paper-pieced and I do that all the time. Either I had a mental block or the pattern was wrong because I tried it three different times and it still didn’t fit together correctly. By this point I was running out of fabric and had to made-do with what I could put together on my own. Not my best work by a long shot.

 

September Theme – Nursery Rhymes

 

I loved the theme and the fabric pieces that were included with this box. I recently saw a pattern in one of my magazines that used novelty fabrics so I immediately had a plan. I added a few of my own novelty fabrics to the square, in a variation of a wonky log cabin. I didn’t like the result so took it all apart and started over again.

Because the fabric was perfect as it was, I added some matching colours along one side and the top. I liked this version much better.