HeartBEEts - Ta Da! - a Bee Sewcial Baby Quilt

Let me tell you about HeartBEEts. She is a baby quilt that the members of Bee Sewcial made for another member, Marci, who has just had a new baby girl. Marci blogs at Marci Girl Designs. Now that she is safely in Marci's hands, I can tell you all about her.

A bunch of us met up at QuiltCon in February, including Marci. She let us know that the baby she was expecting was a girl and that she was into pink for baby things. The rest of us decided to make her a surprise baby quilt, and in keeping with the Bee Sewcial way, the theme/inspiration was hearts and the colour was pink and low volume. Our one deviation from the usual Bee Sewcial rules was to use prints, not just solids.

Stephanie, who blogs at Spontaneous Threads collected the blocks and pieced the top. Debbie, who blogs at A Quilter's Table created the back, with a block addition from Stephanie. I did the quilting and binding.



This block was made by Hillary, who blogs at Entropy Always Wins. I adore this block, and I have to say I was glad of the industrial strength longarm machine as I was quilting it - all those seams really gave my machine a workout thumping through them.



This block was made by Melissa, who blogs at We Shall Sew.



This one was made by Diane, who blogs at Random thoughts... do or "di".



This block was made by Kari, who blogs at Craft Happy.



This block was made by Felicity, who blogs at Felicity Quilts.



This block was also made by Diane, who blogs at Random thoughts... do or "di".



This block was made by Stephanie, who blogs at Spontaneous Threads. She made a similar one that is part of the back.



Stephanie also added this tiny little grey heart. She cautioned me not to sew through it.



The wonder of this tiny little heart is better understood when light (like the flash of a camera) shines on it. It is made from nano particle fabric and it shines that light right back at you. You can read more about Stephanie's nano particle adventures here.



I did not know about the magic of this little heart when I was quilting and photographing the quilt and I generally turn the flash off on my camera. Here is the one whole quilt picture I have with the little heart shining, it is before the quilt had a wash and dry. That little heart sure holds its own with the bigger ones!



This block was made by me.



Here it is before quilting. I used a lovely free pattern from Pieced by Number, go here. I also pulled out a bunch of my hand screened fabrics from Karen Lewis Textiles for the heart. And I could not resist using the bird and children print from the Wee Wanderer collection by Sarah Jane as the background.



This is the other block I made.



You can see it a bit better here. It is improv in straight lines, a bit asymmetrical and quirky.



Not surprisingly, I quilted this quilt with unevenly spaced straightish lines. I used a light pink Aurifil 50wt thread for the top and the bottom.



It's hard to see but the light pink thread gives the whole quilt just a little bit more warmth. I think by now you might have guessed how much I love this little quilt and I know Marci loves it too.



Debbie, from A Quilter's Table designed and pieced the back, with a block from Stephanie added in. I am in love with this back.

You can also see that I bound it with the left overs after trimming of the print on the side of the back. To longarm quilt, one needs the back to have 6 - 8" extra on all sides, and that turned out to provide the perfect binding fabric for this quilt. By the way, HeartBEEts is about 45 - 48" square (I forgot to make a note of the exact size, oops.)

I had to show you another photo of the back. It really is just the other front. This photo is before the quilt was trimmed or washed and you can just sort of see the many low volume white prints that Debbie used.



The label says it all, this was such a fun project to make for a brand new baby. The members of Bee Sewcial were all involved in each step of making this quilt - there was even a lot of thought and discussion about how to name her. Our newest member, Karen, who blogs at CapitolaQuilter joined too late to make a block but helped with the naming and other decisions as we went.



And I had to show you the whole quilt again, the members of the bee did such a great job creating this quilt. I am honoured to be part of such a creative and generous group of women.

Best,

Leanne