June QCA Bee (Hive #2) Blocks

Only a couple of days left until June, which is the month that I'm Bee Leader for the Quilt Club Australia Hive #2 Bee... must be about time for me to let the girls know what I'm looking for!

When I first joined the QCA bee I went hunting online for bee blocks. I found the Quilting Bee flickr group and browsed through to get an idea of the kind of blocks people were likely to be asking for, or that would be appropriate to use when my month came around.

The block that caught my eye was the Lone Starburst block, made famous by Six White Horses (well, I don't know where it started, but that's where I ended up!). She has some gorgeous examples on her blog, and the possibilities are just endless! (The template for the block I want is the one from The Quilting Climber, which can be found here.)

Source: Six White Horses

But straight away I knew I wanted to see it in a turquoise/aqua/blue colour scheme - this block is *perfect* for my sister. She's not a traditional girly girl, and she has always loved shades of blue & green. So all the blocks will be assembled into a quilt for my sister, who is the best sister in the world as far as I'm concerned!

This was my original colour palette (which is still 100% perfect)

I went down to Spotlight to pick up a couple of FQs so I could do up my sample block and decided it would look awesome with the darker grey as the background - I took my Kona colour card with me, and I matched up the Prima homespuns.. The dark grey is Prima Iron, but is similar to Kona Coal. I also picked out the Prima Light Grey (similar to Kona Ash) because I thought it was a possible alternative.

When I got home, I'd received a parcel of Good Fortune scraps direct from Kate Spain herself (she's such a sweetheart!) which were kind of like the muted version of my colour scheme:

My alternate colour palette (featuring Good Fortune & Fandango)

I added in some Fandango that was the perfect shade of aqua, and this is what happened...

The picture doesn't do it justice.. all I can say is *LOVE*!

I was so careful: sew, press, cut, sew.. and it turned out perfectly. With my success under my belt I decided to be efficient and pre cut my strips etc... but I ended up being a little crowded in my workspace and a little complacent.. finger pressing instead of pressing etc. A LOT more frogging. And at the end of the block, my "efficiency" showed... my seams are all about 1/8" out, my centre seam looks like a dog's breakfast... Fortunately, from a distance you can hardly tell. But let this be a warning - short cuts aren't always quicker!!!!!

Can you see my sloppy sewing?

Anyway, they both turned out satisfactorily over all, and I'm really happy with my colour choices!

To summarise:

Block: Lone Starburst, templates here
Background colour: Grey.. Prima Iron or Light Grey, Kona Coal or Ash or similar from other brands!
Starburst colour: Blue/Turquoise/Aqua etc

Any questions, let me know!