Two Birthday Quilts

You are going to hear me say this a lot, but I think I am in the best darn sewing bee that ever existed.  Bee Happy is comprised of ladies from the Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild (though many of us have moved away now) and we are going into our third round soon. Each month these 11 ladies challenge me, teach me new skills and totally crack me up!

I decided for my month that I would enlist all my bee-buddies to make blocks for two quilts.  One for my mom and one for my mother-in-law.  They both have birthday’s in April and I hadn’t made either of them quilts, yet.

 It can be a little tough for me to make a quilt for someone who is more traditional in their taste.  I wanted something that would appeal to my mom and MIL, but also be inspiring and fun to work on and challenging for the bee.

I chose Denyse Schmidt’s “Hope Valley” fabric for both quilts.  I love the saturated, yet slightly muted colors paired with the feedsack prints.

 For the first block,  I asked the ladies to do any sort of triangle, except wonky.  I was inspired by a quilt from another bee I participated in.  I think it’s one of the prettiest bee quilts I have ever seen:

I love all the beautiful blocks the ladies made me!

 I added double 1″ borders,  a la Oh Fransson’s Planetarium Quilt:

 For the second quilt, I asked for a set in circle.  I provided the template and they could do anything they wanted within the circle.

Each circle was so unique and I hope they had fun with it.

After deliberating for about an eon, I finally decided to sew the blocks together without sashing and to add a scrappy border.

I am so pleased with how the quilts turned out and my mom and mother-in-law were both so touched.