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Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Sweet Bee and NTT

Welcome to Needle and Thread Thursday, y'all!  I'm super excited to announce that I've received my first shipment of books, even though the official release isn't for another few weeks.  I’ll be hosting a blog tour toward the end of this month to kick it off right, but having the actual books in hand has gotten me so excited that I can barely stand it!  So, today I'm sharing Sweet Bee, the bonus "thank you" pattern for the book!


Honeybees are so sweet ;) and have significance in several cultures.  The bee and laurel is even believed to be one of the oldest symbols of French royalty.  I'm a Louisiana girl, so I've grown up with French influence all around me.  I have always loved art prints that show a bee with laurel wreaths, and decided that recreating it in a quilt would be lots of fun!


I did some serious quilting on this sweet girl!  The wings are pebbled with a variegated gray thread (Aurifil Silver Moon Gray #4060), which adds really neat dimension, though it was difficult to see my stitching at times against the gray improv.  Sweet Bee herself is quilted in yellow and black with the tiniest crosshatch I could manage, and in the laurel stems, I quilted lines following the shape of the stem and leaf veins.  The background on this quilt is Kona Bone, and it's quilted with a dense stipple, which allows the improv and the more intricate quilting to take center stage.


Because the quilting is so dense, and because I quilted with colors that match each section in the quilt, you can really see the pattern of the quilt on the back side.  I just love that!  This tiny, black and white pebble print shows off the quilting on the bee so well, and I love the extra little pop that the yellow polkadot adds.  The finished Sweet Bee quilt measures 20" x 25".

Sweet Bee is an exclusive PDF pattern, available only with the purchase of my NEW book, Scrappy Improv Quilting.  I designed it as a little show of thanks for purchasing the book, and it cannot be purchased separately.  Signed copies are available from me now, and it will be available everywhere else in a couple of weeks (the perks of being the author is that I get my books first!).  You can find it in my Etsy shop HERE, or by clicking the book at the top left sidebar.  You're going to love it!


Last week's party was filled with awesomeness!  Check out this beautiful quilt by Maggie at Making a Lather-


I love this barn quilt by Jayne at Twiggy and Opal. I have wanted to make one of these forever, and I'm so glad that Jayne shared the steps in her process.




And this little koala from Anne-Marie at Stories From the Sewing Room is just precious!


Okie dokie, friends, let's get our party on!

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5 comments:

  1. Oooh, the quilting is stunning and I love it when it shows so beautifully on the back of a quilt. Congratulations on getting the books in hand!!

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  2. I love how the quilting shows on the back. Congrats on the book, and thanks for sharing my little koala.

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  3. Your bee quilt is a great idea, Kelly, combining the techniques of your book in a fun design! I'm having fun creating my crumb blocks for the background of my project for the blog hop. These are my favorite kinds of blocks to sew!

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  4. Hi Kelly, that<s a really lovely quilt. Take care.

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  5. Ooh didn't know the book wasn't officially out until the end of the month - I saw it on Sandra (of mmm quilts) instagram and found it on Amazon, it arrived yesterday then I realised I've actually got your first book and am just making the panels to make the Grand Bazaar quilt :-) Love both books.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for your comment and for visiting! I read and appreciate every single comment, and I reply to each one as soon as I can. If you don't hear back from me, you might be a no-reply blogger. :)

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