Word Blocks

Alison asked for  free-pieced word blocks for her month in “Bee Happy”.  The first block was our name and the second was a word that made us think of Alison, Bee Happy, or the LAMQG.

Alison sent us lovely, soft vintage sheets and two colors of blue solids.

For my name block, I planned it out first on paper and then worked from left to right, both free and paper piecing.  Theblock measures about 5″ tall.

For the second block, I couldn’t think up ONE perfect word, so I decided on “Sweet as Honey”.  My bee loves to make “bee” jokes (We sent our newest inductee anonymous bee art in the mail for a week before telling her she was being invited to be a member), plus every single member has such a wonderful heart.

I decided to use a more liberated approach compared to the first block. I made all the letters first:

(ok, I don’t have a photo of ALL the letters, but you get the idea)

Then I slowly (and tediously) fit all the letters together like a puzzle and added background fabric as needed.

You can see in the above photo that I laid the letters out on my cutting grid, so I could see where I needed to square up the block, either by adding or subtracting background fabric.  I happened to work backwards piecing this block together, because, well I wanted too…but you can start anywhere you like with this method.

I’m really happy with how these turned out.  I’m always so intimidated to do word blocks, but they end up being a blast!

I decided to channel my love for Word Blocks and I just created a new Flickr Group called (drum roll) “Word Quilts and Blocks“.  Check it out and join on in!