Do you really WANA?

My husband has a quilt of his own but it is very worn and not well made -- it was I think the 2nd quilt I ever made and this was before I realized the importance of stitch length and seam allowance. I told him if he would let me dispose of the ratty quilt he could choose his next quilt and I would have the hive mates make these blocks for him, and each night it would be like he was sleeping with a whole bunch of quilters. 

In February I was queen for the Bee Hive Swarm and in those hives you choose from blocks that have been chosen as a part of the Bee Hive Swarm that Alyce set up last year. I didn't sign up last year because the blocks weren't out yet but these are some pretty fun blocks overall. Thinking of hubby, He likes the cathedral window and orange peel look and when he saw the Wanta Fanta block, he asked if I could use purple and grey. I thought about other blocks that I had seen and came up with the idea of my revamp and showed him my sample block. 

I put forth the changes to the hive and blocks came trickling in and the more of them that I saw the more I realized that this was the right choice and I was really happy that the ladies had sent some scraps along with the blocks, because I was going to need many more of these to make a queen size quilt for our bed.

I was lucky enough that in March I was queen again for the Stash Bee Hive 6 -- I put forth the same challenge and loved watching all the blocks come rolling in. Several of the ladies made a few blocks and that was awesome. I had also asked again for any purple or low volume / grey scraps if they felt inclined to send extras. 

Quilt math meant that I needed a total of 56 blocks for a queen -- I knew that the hives would make 21 blocks needed for the hive, plus my sample block which meant that I needed to make 34 more blocks for the quilt -- now you see why I was so grateful for the extra blocks and the extra scraps. This really meant that the quilt would maintain a scrappy feel and blocks that I made would blend in with the others because it was everyone's fabrics. After all the hive blocks arrived I had 35 with the few extras that I had already been making, so I set out to complete the others. 

To me this quilt is a real eye catcher every time I put groupings of the blocks up -- whether it's (nearly) 12

OR the first 30

and that really helped motivate me to finish assembly quickly. 

While at Stash Bash I got the rest of the blocks put together 

I really love this project and got straight onto the assembly 

This is the first 56 blocks (I thought this was the completed top)

Once I got her home I laid her out on the bed and then decided that making it a square would be better and least likely to impact share-ability on our bed, so that meant making another 8 blocks. I did get an offer from a lady that I had made an extra block for to make a few for me so this really helped. 

Here they are all assembled into a top and ready for quilting.

I may have had to get the selfie stick out for this photo and perch myself on the ledge in our stair well. 

I made the choice to send this one to the long armer because I know it's going to be around for a while. This is only the 2nd quilt I have ever sent out and I choose to go with Charlene @The Cotton Farm Fabrics because she's great and it just so happened that she was doing an awesome discount this month. 

This was another project that I was eager to bind once it came home so I had the binding all prepped and ready to go. I toyed with scrappy binding or something framing like a dark grey but I found this tucked away in my stash. 

Due to it's huge nature, when it got home I took a couple of photos of it on my bed (prebinding turn) to show the ladies how it was going to look -- and i was super eager to see for myself. This quilt finished at 8 feet square so it has an overhand of 18 inches on each side and at the foot plus a turndown at the top. 

You know who made himself right at home -- surveying his newest quilt and making sure it meets his delicate needs. 

Now that it's bound it was time for fun pictures outdoors. 

Hive mates really came through for me this year -- being hive queen early in the year probably has the added advantage that no one is burnt out yet but I did have two awesome groups of ladies making blocks. they pulled it together even though the blocks were a little bit of a challenge. (My tip for bee blocks that are paper pieced -- make sure printing is set at 100% and not fit to page, this cleared up several issues a few people had right away.) 

This is my 12th finish in the 2nd quarter.