Sew Fun January Blocks

I'm back my lovelies! Thank you for all the well wishes on my Redirected Quilt. Now that I'm back in town I'll be responding to all your comments. It was hard to come home but I had an amazing time. You can read all about my South American adventure on my other blog. But now it's all about playing a little catch up. My husband got the electricity fixed in my studio while I was away but now the place is a bit of a mess again since they had to move stuff around to access the wiring. There are a few other small projects in there we need to complete this week before I put it all back together again, so I'm back to sewing in the dining room temporarily.

I joined a couple new bees this year and I am embarrassed to say, I fell way behind in the first one. Way back in January, Krista asked us to make her a tree. That was exciting. I thought this would be such a cool block and I was actually really excited about it. On my holiday road trip in December I started taking pictures of cool trees I would see on my hikes trying to gather ideas. Back at home, I started thinking about more options for trees. I wanted to create something unique, different and me. I guess I suffered from too much inspiration on this one because I started this block a couple times and then scrapped it because it didn't feel right. Suddenly I was behind. Then I was really behind. Now, returning from almost a month in South America I found myself incredibly behind.

Once I got home, I decided to return to one of my initial ideas of making Krista some birch trees. I started by improv piecing the trunks, and suddenly things started to flow. I used primarily solids with a couple light neutral prints thrown in for the bark. I couldn't help but have Jaqui's quilt in mind while I was working. But when it came to the leaves I was a little at a loss. I did consider just leaving them bare because I love the simplicity but then I wasn't sure they would really be the trees Krista wanted. I debated about how to top them and finally decided to cut 1" squares out of a variety of green fabrics and just lightly tacked them down to create texture and flow in the leaves.

Krista had one other request. She wanted us to sign our blocks somewhere on the front so she could remember who made each block when she looked at the finished quilt. She's planning to hang it in her living room. I was inspired by tree carving graffiti and ended up "etching" my name into one of the trunks with needle and thread. I really hope Krista likes this block, and I am so sorry it is so incredibly late. Ugh. Oh the pressure of getting caught up. A few more blocks to go and I will be all caught up.