Besides sewing I love gardening - indoors and outdoors - plants, vegetables and flowers. I like dirt! As a child I loved running around outside barefoot with my feet in the dirt and I still do today.
Growing flowers and vegetables attracts all sorts of cool insects. I'm especially fond of butterflies and bees. I love watching them jump from flower to flower collecting pollen and busily buzzing around. I am concerned for our little creatures. Our environment has become toxic, so I do all I can to keep my area of the world toxic free and organic to help support our bees and butterflies.
Last year during one of my quilt shop hoppings I came across a pattern for a bee mini quilt/wall hanging. I certainly didn't need another project, but with my love of bees I couldn't pass this one by. The pattern is called "bzzzzzz mini quilt" from Whole Circle Studio. So I bought the pattern and put it in a pile of projects on my to-do-list. Certainly not helping my mission to catch up on my UFOs.
Well along came a challenge in March through the AuSable Quilt Guild. We were challenged to use a paint color swatch strip with gradients of a color ranging from light to dark. With this paint swatch we were to create something using these gradients of color. I needed something I could complete by our next monthly meeting - it couldn't be too big. Looking through my to-do projects I came across the bzzzzz mini quilt pattern I purchased last year. Bingo - this would work with my color swatch - yellowish/gold. To make this challenge even better I had all the fabric I needed in my stash, including the backing.
The pattern is for a square wall hanging, however, the bees are constructed in a hexagon with corner pieces added to square it off. I really liked the hexagon shape and decided I would like this to be a table topper for my dining room table - it is the perfect size. So I did not square it off.
Quilt table topper with paint color swatch.
The April guild meeting came along and I laid out my creation with the other guild member participants. Everyone came up with wonderful pieces ranging from quilt squares to stuffed animals and everything in-between. Such talented ladies. I didn't know it was a competition. I thought it was just a fun challenge. I didn't even know members were voting on their favorite. To my surprise my creation was voted first place. When it was announced I had won first place I was very confused, because I didn't even know there was any voting going on. I didn't vote for anyone - I just enjoyed seeing how everyone embraced this challenge. How fun. And I almost didn't participate. Luckily this table topper pattern caught my eye and I decided this was the time to execute it.
Well - the flowers are blooming and the butterflies and bees are buzzing around. It's time to put this table topper on my table and go outside and walk in the dirt!
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