Christmas Bee Quilt

In 2015 I took part in a quilting bee, where every month you make two blocks for one of twelve quilters. The “queen bee” gets to dictate the block types each month. I was lucky enough to be queen in December and I mailed everyone green and gold striped fabric. Of course everyone is very busy in December but I did eventually get (nearly) all of them – I received 18 blocks plus my 2 and that was a perfect amount to make my quilt of 20 blocks! I just finished quilting the piece last week and I’m very happy with how it came out. The same stripey fabric worked especially well on the binding.

I used this as a quilting exercise where every block is quilted differently. I quilted the sashing and border first so that I could completely unpin each square while I was quilting it. That’s not exactly the “right” way to do it but it worked well for my purposes.

This quilt will be put into the Modern Irish Quilter exhibition called “Fun” next year and I’m hoping that many of the quilters who contributed blocks will be able to come and view the quilt. The last exhibition of the Modern Irish Quilters had many of the bee quilts from the previous year and that’s what inspired me to join the quilting bee. I enjoyed watching everyone go up to quilts on display and finding their blocks!