May Spiderweb Block

I was on a roll for a while and then the heat wave hit and I could no longer think straight! It is supposed to be cooler this weekend and I hope to get all caught up with my blocks! I have two sets finished I just need to get them in the mail! This shot was taken on August 7th when I was working on this block for MAY! I completed it the next day.


I thought it would be fun to show my block that we did in March along side the May block I finished.

April Spider web bee batik block

Oh how I luv thee... after almost two weeks of rain the sun came out and Y*E*S
I am able to get outside and take some shots of these amazing fabrics in the sun...even if it is amongst a few dandelions. That means summer is just around the corner gals! I really wanted to try and capture the colors before I put them out in the mail.


Tracey said we could add our own batiks if they were green or purple. I did have a number of batiks but only two of them worked. This purple I really liked how it added to the blocks and sent my remaining fabric swatch along in the mail in the hopes it gets used if she wants to add to the 24 blocks we as a group are making.

I am going to add at least 6 blocks to mine and more for a row in the back of the quilt.....at least I think I am. I also like this huge block idea for a back as well.

I had to place a little stone on the top to hold the blocks in place or they would fly around like in the photo above. This is a pretty good photo of the colors. It will be a darker quilt...mysterious feeling...a wonderful place to go!
I moved the rock over to the side and snapped one last photo and forced myself to get these in an envelop and to the post office before it closed! Run! I got to the post office and the line was out the door. So I ran back to my car and got the book I am reading and stood there for about a half hour reading "The Color of Water" A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. by James McBride.

My son's best friend's mom lent me the book. She is a Jewish woman and her son's dad is African American. He is in college now and was just slammed verbally by a bag lady walking to his car. Believe me folks racism still exists big time in our country. The book is a wonderful tribute to a mom who had 12 children and put all of them through college and in most cases graduate school. The author asked his mother what color God was , she said "God is the color of water". He asked his mother if he was black or white. "You're a human being." "Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!" He knew his mom was different and when he asked her about it she'd simply say, "I'm light skinned."

The whole time reading the book I was thinking in my mind"light skinned black" but she never said that. It's just what my mind was processing. She said "light skinned". Which she is. Which I am. My children are bi-racial. The younger son is darker than his older brother. The older one comments by saying "you are so much darker than I am" every so often when he sees him. He just says it. Not in a condescending manner or negative by any means it is just a statement of fact. The older one is in college and about to turn 21. The younger one is only 8. He goes to a school that is very racially diverse. There are students from 46 different countries at his school. It is a public school in a major city. In his class of 22 there are two white students. I grew up in a small town and never saw a person of another color until I was in high school and even then it was one person.

When I was in college I was involved in the International Student Association and had so much fun meeting people from all over the world. I studied in Germany for a year and enjoyed the experience so much. The friend of my son's leaves in a week to study in England with his girlfriend. He pulled a 4.0 GPA this semester. I am so excited for him. This experience will open his eyes to a much bigger world. I hope I can get my children to travel.

Progress on the Spiderweb Quilt Bee

March has been my month and I have thoroughly enjoyed the entire process of watching the blocks being made and posted to Flickr. Reading the posts on the Spiderweb Bee Blog and adding photos to my galleries on Flickr.

Here is where the quilt sits as of the end of March. I have received the 4 sets of blocks on the right in the mail for the other Bee members. the blocks and wedges on the left are one's I have made. The ones toward the bottom I used from scraps that were sent along with some of the blocks. I am going to put a scrappy border around the entire quilt so some of the bee members are sending fabric scraps from the fabrics used in their blocks for me to add to the border.

I haven't yet started the border but I think I will soon. I have to decide what length to made the border strips.

March Spiderweb Bee - It's my month!

I have two new great nieces since the beginning of the new year. Fionna Marion and Autumn Evangeline. I knew I was going with the dark brown kites. I wanted the sparkle in the spiderwebs and I think I have achieved that in this photo.

I have blogged on the Spiderweb Bee blog about the colors I am looking for. See here.

I put together a Spiderweb fabric gallery of one photo from each of the other 11 members in the Spiderweb Bee. I thought it would be fun to take a look at the quilts the members have made and select something in the color scheme I am working towards. Everyone had something!

I really have a lot of fun with the Gallery feature on Flickr.

It's been a busy two days. Monday was Cub Scouts and last night my Tuesday quilt group met. Tonight I went to the discussion area of the The Spider Bee group on Flickr and one member so far received her fabric packet from me today.



I am really looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with. It took quite a bit for me to shift gears from the citrus colors of February to my Earth tone colors for March. I thought spring is just around the corner here in Minnesota lets work with colors of the soil and the long awaited green grass...water...campfires...SPRING.
Along comes little baby Autumn and of course I can easily see the colors of Autumn in this quilt as well. You choose! Have fun! I did!!!

February is on the ironing board and March on the sewing table.

January fabrics in my string diamonds

January fabrics came for the Spiderweb Bee and Anna said to keep the leftovers and not to mail them back to her....Happy Birthday!

Look what I did. I added them to 2 projects I have been working on.

The Coin quilt is now adapted to a Calendar Coin quilt! Each month I am adding a row with fabrics from that month and coordinating fabrics from my stash.



The second quilt is one I started way back in the 80s and has never been finished. It is a String Diamond quilt.
I have been playing a lot these past two weeks with the scraps left from the Spiderweb fabrics from January and February. Look at the diamonds I made with Anna's fabrics! We had sunshine as you can see and oh how energized I feel!




I was trying to play with shadows from the sun. The tree design on the center fabric is outlined in metallic. I like how this block turned out.





I don't remember what the name of the dark green fabric is called. It has a plush feel to it. I like the texture it adds.

March Spiderweb Bee Fabrics

Spiderweb Bee February Blocks

These fabrics were so fun to work with. They are the newest freshest fabrics I have had my hands on in a long time. They are so different from anything I would have ever chosen. That makes it great fun! I just had a blast working on this!


I am going to get these in the mail tomorrow along with the fabric for my March block. Oh you will not believe how hard it was to go from these citrus, floral, bright fabrics to the direction I went. Different as night and day.

I think this is the direction I will be going...

The full quilt can be seen here.
I liked this quilt the second I saw it! It is what I had in mind when I joined the Spiderweb Bee.
I have to get to some quilt/fabric shops and take a look at some browns. Hopefully I will see one that jumps out at me.
I like the yellow golden tones with the blacks. I especially like how the red pops here and there.

Anna's Blocks completed

January's blocks are completed! I really enjoyed putting these together. I haven't completely decided on my own blocks....I have the month of March. In these you may be able to notice that I alternated red and green on the wedges. Anna asked that we not sew our blocks together so I would imagine these wedges will me mixed amongst the other 11 quilter's blocks.

My photos are dark. I took them outside after these shots to see if I could get a little better photo. Can you see how these wedges alternate the red and the green?

Outside shots...

my first block...
my second block.

I thought I could add a row each month to this coin quilt I started last year.
The bottom row is made using leftover scraps from the spiderweb blocks above.

I am challenging myself to use up all the scraps in a few of my ongoing scrap quilts. This one is a coin quilt that was popular on Flickr this past year.






Thanks Anna for letting us keep the leftovers from this project.

Tomorrow is the Martin Luther King Jr holiday so there is no postal service. I will do my best to get your blocks in the mail on Tuesday. I still have to pull the foundation paper off the back but that is the easy part.

I had a dream last night...

...that my Spiderweb block had all kinds of little narrow strings in them. Like a real spider web.

Even thinner than in this photo!

I woke up thinking .... what if .... these strings were in black....or very deep browns....and some very deep greys...earth tones!

I have been thinking about it all day.

January blocks for Anna

Here is the fabric Anna sent for her blocks.




This week I started the wedges for the Spiderweb Bee blocks for Anna.
The first fabric I found myself reaching for is the star fabric to the left.







Anna chose this fabric because it is from a current project she had just worked on.












A few of the blocks that are already posted in the group already have the Charlie Brown fabric in them.
I have currently been working on a Christmas Star quilt. Anna said in her note that came with the fabric that she did not want any of her scraps back.
I immediately added the green metallic tree fabric to my stars! It is so perfect!!!







Anna wants us to put our own fabrics in the blocks so she has a real scrappy feel to her quilt.


Here is the first completed wedge from a couple days ago. There are twelve of us in the Bee and each of us have picked a month. My month is March. By that time I hope I will have a better grasp of the whole project. I was nervous. I read and reread the tutorials. Anna sent the center fabric so there is consistency throughout the whole quilt.

This is just a rough shot as I go through the audition phase of pulling some of my fabric scraps that I think coordinate and tell a story. Above I have a red piece of music fabric from my nieces Red/Black musical quilt. Just below it is a swatch of cat fabric from a quilt I made for my best friend's (My older son's Godmother) daughter. I collected cat fabrics for about 3 years to go into a star quilt for Alicia. I gave the completed top to her for her graduation present from high school.












On one wedge I am putting both of these tree fabrics. The one to the left came from Anna and the one to the right I had in my stash.

Here are two more pieces of fabric with trees on them. They are both from Christmas fabrics.



Anna also said that she likes green!

Here is a better shot of the musical fabric and the cat fabric.

***It shouldn't take much longer for me to finish these blocks.


One of the nice things about Anna's blocks is she wanted them scrappy. I ***love*** scrappy quilts. The more fabrics the better. I have also noticed that I like a darker string to go around the outside of the WEB which is the 1st pieces that get sewn on next to the backing fabric you see in the center here. I have also been thinking that I may want a lot of stripe fabric. See the little snowman above. I was able to move the strip so that little guy sat more in the center. In this project it is not fussy cutting but fussy laying of the strip.
I have really enjoyed the start of this project.

Vintage Spider Quilt

This piece is the size of the back of a rocking chair. I don't know if it was bigger at one time. I just love it!

I joined in the Spider quilt Bee mainly because I am so awestruck by my aunt's vintage rocking chair cushion that her mother made.

This vintage piece is very different from the ones that I see on Flickr.

I apologize that these photos are blurry but they are the only ones I have at this time.

I really like how the red pops in this section.

One of the best parts of this quilt is the dark thread hand quilting and how it shows on both sides of the quilt.