Siblings Together Bee

As promised, I'm delighted to share with you mums Siblings Together quilt!

Mum took part in the first year of the Siblings Together Bee - her first bee - and had a great time!
Each member was allowed to choose a fat quarter bundle courtesy of moda, and mum went for the beautiful Blue Bird Park by Kate & Birdie Paper Co.  Choosing the bundle was easy, but the block?  That took a great deal of deliberation and many hours on EQ7!  Fortunately it also gave her something to do in between holding my hair back as I spewed my way through pregnancy...

Eventually she hit upon the Broken wheel block, and I gave up my hoarded Moda Grunge Cookies and Cream to use as a background, and it all came together.  I must say this block is now in my top 10 must make soon list!  Mum certainly made it look a lot easier than I'd expected it would be.

It was so much fun seeing the blocks come in, the bee ladies did mum proud and they all pieced together with no trouble at all.
The blocks came out at 18" finished, so with a little sashing and border, the finished quilt came to 60" x 80", a bit of a whopper in our house!


The batting was Sew Simple 80/20 and was kindly donated by Lady Sew and Sew.  For the back, Amanda from Westwood Acres generously donated yardage of a panel print from the range.  The panel actually looks like this,

picture taken from Fabric.com

but we needed it wider, so mum joined them in the middle of the flowery bit, canny huh?  It looks absolutely perfect!

We're not all that used to doing big quilts, mum and I, so the quilting became a bit of a mental hurdle.  It didnt help that the basting had been tricky and had needed to be re-done twice already.  Most bizarre, the tape we use to stick the back down when we baste just wouldnt stick to the back this time, kept pinging off mid pin!  Nightmare.  Anyway, the back puckered each time mum started quilting.  Third time lucky though!   It took a good bit of nagging encouraging to get mum started but boy when she got going it was done in a few hours!  A little glass of red may have been involved, but I think mostly it was down to the days I had spent going on at her about it.  Annoying?  Moi?  Well, I dont want mum losing her quilting mojo, its way too much fun having a quilting partner!
She did a free motion sunburst / bicycle spokes sort of thing in each block, and a lovely meandering line with hearts around the border.  To me the quilting is just an ideal fit for the "day in the park" theme of the fabric.

The binding was made with the off cuts from the back, mostly from the same pattern area too, and I think it works really well.  Suffice to say mum was awffy chuffed with it, and I love it too.

We'd like to give a big thank you to all the generous companies that have contributed to the making of these quilts for such a worthy cause, and of course all the ladies of the Siblings Together Bee.

Goodness knows I love my brother dearly and cannot imagine having had to grow up separated from him.  The work Siblings Together does is so special.  Here's hoping mums quilt goes some way to giving someone a big hug and a lovely reminder of fun times.