Bee Rothko

For October, it was Felicity's @felicityquilts turn to choose our Bee Sewcial @beesewcial prompt, and she asked us to make one large block inspired by the work of American painter Mark Rothko.

If, like me, you aren't really familiar with Rothko's work, check out this post from breathing.art. For Felicity's purpose, we were asked to create a piece with at least two colours, with the colour(s) being the maker’s choice. "When you compose your block, please use at least two close values of the same colour for each stripe to give a bit of texture." I thought that was very clever, and really added to the fun of creating my block for her. Once complete, my block measures roughly 14" x 23", and yes, it's a little funky with that wider edge on the upper right. But I figured Felicity could trim as she saw fit, rather than me trimming everything 'square.' Some Bee Sewcial prompts are super challenging, some super easy; this one was just right.

No Rest for the Weary

Huuuuge sigh of relief, my friends. It always feels monumental when a Bee Sewcial quilt gets finished, and maybe even more so with this result from my Courthouse Steps prompt. At 64" square, I know it's busy, busy, with little space for the eye to rest, but I love it. Meet No Rest for the Weary.

I struggled a while deciding on a layout, knowing that, if possible, I'd like to add a bit more black and white to play off the centers of my bee mates' blocks. And once I came up with an idea, I felt pretty good about it, finicky as it was to create and work in amongst the blocks.

The center of the quilt back was made entirely from scrap, but I'd pretty much run out by that time, so I added stash to bring it to size, while trying to create a big ole courthouse steps design.

For quilting, I was inspired by a design I got from the AQS blog a couple of years ago: 25 Nine Patch Quilting Designs. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be there any more. But here's a diagram of it:

I've been calling it a zig zag grid, but honestly, before I'd even stitched all the lines, if felt like enough. I began with a 3" grid, then stitched at a 45-degree angle, followed by a 60-degree angle. It felt like a LOT of stitching! With so many colors in the quilt, I wasn't sold on any particular thread color, but finally settled on 

Aurifil 50wt 5006 [Light Turquoise], which worked well enough.

To finish, I decided on a faced edge. using the tutorial by Audrey Esaray @cottonandbourbon, and I'm glad I did. This is my 12th(!) quilt with Bee Sewcial, and I'm more than happy to add No Rest for the Weary to the collection.

Many thanks to my Bee Sewcial bee mates for their wonderful responses to my prompt. Leanne Chahley @shecanquilt, Stephanie Ruyle @spontaneousthreads, Felicity Ronaghan @felicityquilts, Karen Foster 

@capitolaquilter, M-R Charbonneau @quiltmatters, Tia Curtis @tiacurtisquilts, Emilie Trahan @mili.tra, and Kitty Wilkin @nightquilter all contributed blocks.

Kitchen Report | 8 Weeks

So when I left off two weeks ago, our new floors had just been covered up to project them, which is great, but we miss seeing them! Week 7 felt a little ho-hum, not that nothing got done, but it just didn't feel as impressive as other steps. The whole area was painted, and cabinet toe-kicks and molding were installed, so at least the space was looking more finished.

Week 8 though, saw some major improvements! Our quartz countertops were installed!

As was our sink.

Then over the next three days, the full-height ceramic tile backsplash went in. Note that an accent tile went behind where the cook top and hood will eventually be.

All the tile was 12" x 24", and I really like how it was installed vertically. 

I had fun helping pick out the grout, and once that was done, it looked so good.

Between the counters and the backsplash, it really feels like were close to a finish. Sure, we still need lighting, appliances, and a final coat on the floors, but considering how far we've come, it seems like the end is fairly near.

Weave Got This! :: Quadrants A & B

Once again, guild members were clamoring for an early release of the October BOM instructions - in time for a guild retreat - and our leaders happily complied. Though I incorrectly expected top finishing instructions, what we got was instructions to assemble four quadrants. And honestly, that was plenty!

So we were shown how to create two quadrants like the one shown above, and two like the one below.

The quadrants are good-sized! Each measures 27.5" x 39.5" unfinished. Just for fun, I put all four quadrants up on the design wall. I'm not sure at all that this will be the final layout, but it was fun to see them all together! And just a note, the colors of the quadrants in the photos above are more true, taken outside, than those below, taken in the late afternoon studio. But either way, it's looking good, and I look forward to finishing a quilt top come November.

Stripes Stripes Stripes

Émilie's @mili.tra Bee Sewcial prompt for September was stripes stripes stripes. Her goal for us was to create a pseudo-repeating pattern using a minimum of four colors in total: one light, one dark, one bright, and one muted. We could add more colors to each category if we wished, but the idea was then to avoid mixing two colors from the same category within a single stripe—for example, no pairing two light colors together. But I just used the initial four I chose, so that wasn't an issue.

Above is my first block, roughly 15" x 19". The second block, below, would be approximately 10" x 18" if trimmed, and could be kind of angular, or not.

Stripes are almost always fun to create, and these were definitely as expected. They'll be heading off to Émilie soon to join those of my bee mates.

2026 Quilting Check In Q3

Unbelieveably, the year is three-quarters over, and it's time for the third quarterly check in with Melanie Meyer @mellmeyer. I'll keep things simple and report on my quilting finishes for the quarter.

July - September 2026 Quilts

Gotta say, I'm pretty happy with what I've been able to accomplish this last quarter. Five of the six quilts I made were made primarily from scraps, and that feels very good.

• Stackables - a scrap quilt inspired by Ophelia Pang's @opheliapangg Stacking Stools. I'd been wanting to try that block for ages.

• Tangled Strings - scrappy strings inspired by Free Form Quilts & Patchwork by Jessie Cutts @cuttsandsons.

• Overmuch - made of so many scrappy grab&piece blocks.

• plethora - all the purple scraps were used in this one.

• Elate - made during the Elate QAL with Carolyn Friedlander and her latest fabric line, Memento.

• Slim Pickings - A bit of an interlude, which used the last of the warm solid scraps in the scrap basket.

Even with all that, I still have solid scraps gracing the bottom of the scrap basket. I'm kind of hoping to see the bottom before Q4 is over!

Linking up with Melanie and her 2026QuiltingCheckIn Q3 Link-Up!

Jimothy

Not quite sure how I happened across the Jimothy Embroidery Pattern by Fife Fibers, but when I saw it, I thought it would be perfect for my friend Louise's @imfeelincrafty birthday. 

The design is 8" big, and I used my lightbox to trace it onto a gray-blue Kona cotton that I can't remember the name of unfortunately. I backed it with a piece of Essex before stitching, which was great for stitching, but caused a bit of a challenge later on, but more on that later.

For all of the embroidery, I used embroidery floss in a varying number of strands - I honestly just followed the designer's suggestions. In stitching Jimothy, I happily learned a new stitch - the rice stitch. Basically you layer what I know as seed stitches, using different colors of thread. It was a great way to fill in.

The only challenge in the whole project came when I went to insert the finished stitchery into an 8" wooden hoop. The gathering of the fabric on the back was a little heavy due to the double thickness. But I was slow and careful, and once the gathering was complete, I lightly pressed the edges on the back before adding the felt. 

[Just for the record, I traced the felt along the outer edge of the inner hoop, then cut out with scissors. For the gathering and sewing the felt on the back, I used a single thickness of Wonderfil Spagetti 12wt hand quilting thread.]

Louise received Jimothy a few days ago, so I'm happy to be able to share him now. This little stitchery was definitely a joy to stitch.

Slim Pickings

Throughout September, I've been working pretty steadily on two big quilt projects, and the other day, I just needed something small. And scrappy. So I peeked in my solid scrap basket, which is honestly getting pretty low, and pulled out all the warm scraps I could find. They were a fun mix, but it felt like they needed something. So looking into my stash closet, I chose a small-ish (1/4 yard?) of deep Kona Deep Blue.

With the blue, I cut a few strips both 1" and 1.5" wide, and then just started piecing the scraps in log-cabin-like blocks, inserting a strip or two of the blue into each one. Then I squared them all up, but obviously not too square. Then I used more of the blue to puzzle the blocks together with the same 1" and 1.5" wide strips.

I had just a few pieces of warm solids left to start a pieced quilt back, so I grabbed my warm print scrap bucket, and stole a few from there to bring it up to size.

For quilting, I stitched an angled grid using Aurifil 40wt 5015 [Gold Yellow]. Maaayyyybe it was a bit much, but it felt right at the time, and I was all about just having fun with it. I bound the little quilt with the very last of the Deep Blue, and it finished at 16" x 23".

So that was a fun little interlude, and it encouraged me to get back to quilting the bigger project, so yay! Plus I used up even more scraps. I'm thinking I might just have enough solid scraps for one more quilt, so we'll see if I can get to that before long.