Stash Bee: Queen Bee

October is my turn!

I've spent ages trying to decide which block to ask for this month. Back in May I saw this quilt entered in the Bloggers Quilt Festival and I knew I had found the block I wanted! Thanks, Becky, for letting me share your beautiful quilt! But I am going for a slightly different colour scheme - these are the favourite colours of my Great Aunty Iris!

My heart sunk when she said she liked purple, as it's a colour I struggle to find, so I thought I'd ask my fellow Stash Bee-ers to help me out.

I've put together my own tutorial here, but drawn heavily from two on-line tutorials here and here:

To make one block, you create four quarters:

To make four quarters you will need

• Four 6" squares in various purple fabrics
• Two strips of cream 1" by width of fabric (If you're using a fat quarter, you'll need four strips cut from the longest side, and if you're using scraps, 8 pieces 1" x 10.5". If you can cut from WOF, you can easily chain piece.
• A pile of scraps of pink and purple fabric 3.5" long and  a variety of random widths between 1" and 2.5". The pile pictured below made up 8 quarters.

Join the scraps of purple and pink together to create four rectangles 3.5" wide and minimum of 10.5" long. Press all the seams in one directly, then trim to the exact measurement (3.5" x 10.5"). If you'd rather do this using the foundation menthod, follow the link through to the second tutorial above, but please could you do straight seams, rather than the wonky ones shown in this tutorial.

Attach the narrow cream strips to each side. Chain piece to save time, by  feeding the cream fabric right side up under the needle and positioning the rectangles you have just made on top, face down. Guide it through using a quarter inch seam allowance, but there's no need to pin. As you come to the end of one rectangle feed in the next, without overlapping.

If your cream fabric is a regular 42-44" wide, you should fit all four on one length for one side and then use the second length for the other side. Press seams towards the cream.

You now need to trim the ends of the rectangle to create a kind of arrow. If your ruler has a 45degree line this is pretty straightforward (if it doesn't use a piece of masking tape and a protractor to mark a 45degree line onto your ruler temporarily). Start by folding the rectangle in half lengthways (match up the seam line between the scrappy centre and the cream outline as the cream fabric is narrow enough to be a little bit stretchy).

Pinch a crease into the rectangle at the fold, then open back out. Place the ruler onto the rectangle as shown in the below photograph, lining up the end of your ruler with the fold you have just made and the edge of your rectangle with the 45degree line, and cut the corner off withour rotary cutter.

Repeat this for all four corners and all four rectangles.

None of these fabrics are actually blue!

Now take the 6" purple squares and cut them all in half diagonally. I have given you generous measurements, as I'd rather the blocks were slightly larger and I could trim them down, rather than too small. Mix up the different prints and then stitch a different one to each side of the rectangle. To line everything up, fold the central rectangle (the one with corners chopped off" in half along the long side and pinch a crease into the centre. Do the same with the long side of the triangle, then line up the creases and pin before sewing the seam. Press the seams towards the triangle. Do this for each of the rectangles and you are done.

Please don't trim the blocks or join them together so I can mix them all up in the finished quilt. I've trimmed one of my quarters and it's coming out about 7.5" square.

I can't wait to see what you come up with! If you have any questions or problems, please just let me know and I'll do my best to help you out.