My finished Sewcial Bee Sampler quilt!!

Last year, I thoroughly enjoyed joining the Sewcial Bee Sampler sew along co-hosted by Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell.  It was the perfect sew along for me - just one block a week which I found easy to keep up with (I know that you can take all these sew alongs at your own pace, but I tend to feel demoralised if I 'fall behind"!).   Looking back through my Instagram feed, I realised that I started my blocks in February 2017!  Although I kept up with the block making, I then deliberated about sashing fabric for months and then put it away for a few months before deciding to hand quilt it (which took a month or two working on a block or two each evening).

The easy part was deciding to use my bundle of Playground fabrics by Amy Sinibaldi, although I found choosing fabric for each block hard at the beginning.  The first block looked completely different depending on your fabric choices and placement - I felt so indecisive trying to select just four fabrics, not helped by looking at all the fabulous  blocks popping up on Instagram!  In the end, I tried to choose my fabrics each week before looking at Instagram posts.  The colouring in sheet provided by Sharon Holland at the start was also invaluable - it made fabric selection for each block easier as I went along and helped with colour and print distribution. 

February was also when I 'met' Saira at Olive and Flo Handcraft who offered to send me samples of the coordinating AGF Pure Elements which was so helpful.  I added Pure Elements Icy Mint, Crystal Pink, Grapefruit and Snow to my Playground bundle and I was ready to go!  

Once all my blocks were made it was decision time again - this time sashing colour.  Although I was leaning towards a light colour or a blue, I also really wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone, and be daring with the colour.  Saira sent me more samples, and I bravely chose AGF Pure Elements Cabernet, which I'm so pleased I went with; it is such a gorgeously rich colour.  

I deliberated for months about how to quilt this quilt.  If my FMQ was better, I think that I would have liked to do an all over FMQ pattern.  I know that the only way to improve is to dive in and practice, but this quilt is just too special for quilting practice!  I was reluctant to do all over straight line quilting too because I was worried about how the lines of thread would look crossing through the dark sashing.  So I chose to spend another month or so hand quilting it, and I'm pleased that I did.  Longarm quilter Trudi Wood advised me to machine quilt within the sashing using a coordinating thread to hold the whole thing in place.  This worked well, especially as the quilt was moved around a lot and scrunched up on my lap each evening.  

I pieced the quilt using my usual white Aurifil 50wt thread.  Trudi helped me choose a thread to match the Cabernet sashing (Aurifil 50wt colour number 1240) which blended in perfectly.  I then used four 12wt threads for the hand quilting  plus a white thread of similar weight. 

I went for simple hand stitches around the key shapes within each block and also around the outer edges of the smaller blocks.  My 14" quilting hoop was a fabulous investment.  

Having bought metres and metres of Jumpsie Daisy (in the Gumball colour way) for the backing, I used that for the binding too.  It looks nice against the Cabernet and pulls the quilt together I think because this print appears in several of the blocks (including the one above). 

We were blessed with beautiful sunny days this weekend, so my quilt-holder-helpers were given the task of holding this up for me for lots of photos.  After taking lots of good, and straight, photos I realised that the quilt was upside down (not a great way to show off all the sweet fussy cuts!) so we then had to start again, this time with my 10 year old complaining of arm-ache!  

Now that it is finished, it is finally on my our bed and looks beautiful against the dark wood. 

Unbelievably I'm now off to work on the last block of this year's sew along with Sharon and Maureen, the Community Sampler!  If you fancy joining in with a nice paced, fun and inspirational sew along, pop over to Sharon's website for all the details.  Even though it is coming to an end, you can still find all the info-packed tutorials and patterns on Sharon's blog and so much inspiration and encourage under the #communitysampler hashtag.  

Thanks for popping by. 

Sarah x