Siblings Together Bee 1. March Block

 This post gives instructions for the March block for the ladies of the Siblings Together Bee 1 from Jen of Glinda Quilts.

Hello all!

March is my month to request blocks for this year's Siblings Together quilt drive from the ladies in our ST quilting bees group. I am so thankful and lucky to be a part of this fantastic cause.

As well as a couple of Bees, individual quilters across the land and beyond are making quilts for this year's camps where children separated by the care system come together and are gifted a quilt. Please visit the site and blog for more information and how you can help. 

Here are the instructions (note the high-tech designing ... NOT!):

And here is my 18.5" finished block:

I decided to stay away from my favourite pinks and go with something a bit more colourful. You'll need a little bit of orange, blue, green and yellow fabric and some white background (I've used Makower scrolls and an embossed snowflake but any whites will do). 

Each of the 16 units are 5" before sewing so the HSTs will be cut at 5 and 3/4" and the four piece squares cut at 2 and 3/4":

Some Glinda preferences: I don't do random! So I'd like the colour order to be exactly the same as my block, please :) this will flow really nicely once all 12 blocks are sewn together. Also, if you don't mind, please press the seams open. 

Other than that, it's very straightforward, here are some more pics just to show how I put it together:

Thank you, ladies, you're all amazing xx

Scrap Box Block Tutorial for Siblings Together: Frame Box.

Sarah from Sew Me is generously sharing a series of Scrap Box block tutorials ideal for making quilts for Siblings Together. Thanks very much Sarah and over to you.

I've been brewing a plan for a while.  It involves delving into my carefully stored and pre-cut scrap boxes and doing something useful with them.  Since committing to a whole quilt myself for the Siblings Together charity just isn't possible this year, I thought I might cheerlead from the sides, encouraging all of you to raid your scrap boxes and make a simple scrappy quilt or two yourselves. 

With a trusty assistant at hand a few weekends ago, we got stuck into my scrap boxes and the three block designs in the top photo are what we came up with.  There's no rocket science in any of these blocks and I'm quite sure that all of you would be able to come with these by yourself.  However, if you're trying to think of a quilt for Siblings Together and would simply like someone to have done the cutting maths for you, I'm going to share tutorials for all three types of block here over the next few weeks.

Frame Box Block Tutorial

Today I'm going to share a tutorial for this block which is a 10.5" x 12.5" unfinished rectangle.  For these blocks I went straight to my box of 2.5" strips. Just a few cuts and a few seams resulted in these pretty framed box blocks.  These would be perfect if you have leftover jelly roll strips or lengths of unused 2.5" binding. So go on, hunt a few out and join in.

To start with you will need 3 different fabrics which are 2.5" wide.

Fabric A (centre rectangle)
Cut 1:  2.5" x 4.5"

Fabric B (first frame - a 2.5" x 22" strip will allow you all the cuts required)
Cut 2: 2.5" x 4.5"
Cut 2: 2.5" x 6.5"

Fabric C (outer frame - a 2.5" x 38" strip will allow you all the cuts required)
Cut 2: 2.5" x 8.5"
Cut 2: 2.5" x 10.5"

Layout your pieces as shown in the photo above.

Using scant 0.25" seams throughout, stitch the borders in place adding the side pieces first and then the top and bottom.

Press seams away from the centre.

Your outer border is added in exactly the same way - sides first, then top and bottom.  Neatly trim to 10.5" x 12.5".   After that, hey presto ...

you will have a great wee block for the start of your Siblings Together Quilt and you'll have done something useful with those scraps!!

I realise that this isn't the most detailed of tutorials, so please do ask if you need any clarification, but honestly it is that simple.

As a by the way, I am very happy for anyone to reference these scrap box block tutorials or indeed any of my block tutorials for use in your Charity Bees or even just your ordinary Bee groups.

Hope to be back soon with the next scrap box block tutorial for you.

Link Up your Finished Quilts for Siblings Together 2016

One of our pages, the one with the tab 'Quilt Link Up' is where we will be counting up the finished quilts kindly made and donated by you, the wonderfully supportive quilting community in this year's campaign to donate 100 quilts to Siblings Together.

My Scraptastic friend Leanne set it up for us - thank you so much Leanne!

Can you please add a link from a blogpost, from Flickr or Instagram.  Instructions on how to do this are on the 'Quilt Link Up' page. 

If you do not have any of these social media, and do not wish to, then please email us a photo and some words and we can put a guest post together on this blog on your behalf and link for you.

We really want to know about all the quilts being made for Siblings Together this year so please be our eyes and ears and tell us about any that haven't been linked or tell the quiltmaker about us!

We would ask , when you send your quilt onto the charity Siblings Together, that you mark your quilt label and packaging with your linky number to help identify your quilt - please write Linky Number x!  

That way we hope the Siblings Together charity will easily be able to identify your quilt and let you know it has arrived safely.  If you are like me I get a bit agitated not knowing if something I have made has arrived or not!

Thanks for all your support in this year's campaign.  We really want things to work out as smoothly as possible for everyone involved so if there is a problem do let us know and we will try to resolve it.  

And you can help us spread the message around by putting this button on your blog page 

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Stingy Bee made a quilt for Siblings Together!

And here is another Scrappy Trip Story....

Way back in 2013 I was inspired to ask my Stingy Bee mates to help make a quilt for Siblings Together.  Most of them were able to send me some blocks...

The Scrappy Trip Around the World (method by Bonnie Hunter) was all the rage, popularised at the time by Katy.  So we picked out our red, blue, grey and white scraps and put this quilt together...

Everyone sent me their blocks, and I put the quilt together in this layout, with a generous backing donation from Helen.

If you don't really think you can make a quilt on your own for Siblings Together why not ask a few friends to help - they could be from a bee you are already in, a group of online friends or even ones that you meet up with in real life!


We had fun making this quilt and it brings back a few early memories of our Stingy Bee !  

Quilt Story - Around The World for Siblings Together

 I love receiving packages.  Sometimes I receive orphan blocks in the post from some kind generous person to make a quilt for siblings together.  Recently I received some trip around the world blocks from Cathy Ewbank - she is a lovely lady I met in person while making a dilly bag with Judy Newman.

Now these blocks have some friends from my lovely siblings together bee mate Joanne !   

And Merel, who runs a quilt shop called Birdblocks, in Amsterdam, sent some more....

I found some lovely fabric donated by Sarah/Jude through the #siblingstogetherdestash on Instagram which was perfect to back the quilt.  And then it was done!

  The ladies donating blocks and fabric to this fabulous cause are so lovely and supportive of our efforts - we really couldn't do it without them.   

I am happy to do my bit stitching it all together so we can notch up another quilt closer to our 100 quilt target this coming year.

I really seem to enjoy these collaborative efforts and along with my bee quilts it seems I hardly ever make a quilt on my own now!

If you have some unwanted blocks you can donate them - just leave a comment and we will be in touch. We also hope to have another destash so that is another option to pass them on.

 Or you might find renewed purpose and finish off the quilt yourself.  Please let us know you are making a quilt for Siblings Together.  

If you have photos of your project we would love to share them here on the blog and we welcome guest blog posts so everyone can share in the project.

  

The Bluepatch Quilters - update

Sheila Donnachie is back with an update on how the Bluepatch Quilters are getting on with making quilts for Siblings Together.  Over to you Sheila...

Back in early December you may recall I told you how my students were helping out with Siblings Together.  Many of the ladies in my classes love helping out with a charity drive and this challenge has been no different.

My goal was for four quilts, each measuring 60” square. I planned four colourways and on returning to class after the Christmas break, the quilted blocks started to come in, thick and fast.

In January, I had only four blocks to come, one in each colourway, which of course, is sod’s law as I couldn’t progress one to a finish, just then.

What I was able to do however, was have a good look through my stash, make a couple of small purchases, and I prepare the strips that will join the blocks, and the binding.

I have in the past been involved in group quilts and sometimes it can be tricky to achieve a cohesive look to the quilt.

That is why I decided on a colour plan and I decided to write quite a prescriptive handout, asking that care be taken with colour value so that the diagonals of the chosen block really stands out and makes a statement.

I also asked that for the blue quilt, we had no flowers or girly motifs so that we had some obvious boy quilts available.

If you teach classes, or attend quilt groups where you think a Siblings Together group quilt might be a possibility I am happy for you to contact me for a copy of my handout containing the block instructions.

Sometimes, for one reason or another you will find someone who doesn’t want to make a block – I have had a couple of ladies who instead, have chosen to give me some fabric, suitable for the block backing, or a fat quarter in a particular colour that is need – I found that yellow was a colour that not many of us had much of.

One lady in my class had been having a bit of a clear out and gave me a pile of half square triangles plus some yardage of one of the fabrics I played about with the HSTs, added in a little fabric of my own and came up with this block. I have in mind a medallion quilt using as much from stash as I can, and before too long, perhaps a 5^th SB quilt will emerge.

Thank you Sheila!  And since Sheila first wrote this post I am pleased to say that one of the quilts is now finished

I'm looking forward to the rest as it is a very striking design!  

Featuring on the Quilt Now Website

Read about the Siblings Together Quilt Group here on the Quilt Now website!  Old news (Nov 2015) I know but still relevant

If you read about us anywhere else then please do let us know!