Seeing Stars: 100dayproject

94/100

So on my birthday I decided to start my very first 100 days project!

My goal was simple: sew a star block every day for 100 days. 

Checkout #bumblybzs100days to see all the blocks.

1/100

Stars are my favorite shape, and I knew there were a lot of star block designs/patterns out there, because it's a fairly classic quilt block. The main guideline I had was to keep the blocks 9" or smaller, and I was working from my fabric stash.

50/100

77/100

My timeframe ran March 27 - July 4, which meant this became the perfect project to work on through the craziness of the pandemic. When I started, I was still at work but we were closed to the public, than I was furloughed, than brought back via the PPP & working from home, then work reopened and we had a rotating in-office schedule. Phew!

23/100

48/100

Starting with known designs at the beginning made it fairly quick each day to stitch up a star. As days went on, I spread my search to Google, Pinterest, Instagram tags, quilt books & patterns I had on a shelf, and even had friends & coworkers & fam messaging me blocks and ideas! 

37/100

51/100

I tried to pack in a variety of techniques including: hand applique, machine applique, paper piecing, EPP, reverse applique. Many of the blocks I re-drafted to make them fit into my size requirements, some are original designs, and others I crunched the numbers to do the quilt math to be able to size it correctly. 

15/100

Choosing fabric combinations, diving deep into my scraps and fabric stash was really fun. It gave me a chance to look through all of my fabric, re-sort or organize some of it, and to use loads of fabrics that I had forgotten about, or hadn't used before, alongside some of my favorite pieces.

87/100

3/100

It was fun to have no idea what the next days' star would be, and also fun to stretch the idea of a star, or to coordinate it to a holiday/special event.

65/100

100/100

After finishing the full 100 days, I took all the stars and pinned them up on the wall at work. I'm not yet decided on a layout - originally I planned to split them into 2 groups and make this a double sided quilt. However, once I saw them all together on the wall, I like the idea of them all being on one side of a quilt for the extra wow impact of 100 stars!

Birthday Bee Blocks

So last year I was part of the #birthdaywishesbee on Instagram with a great group of quilters. Each month each of us got to be queen bee and request a specific block, with everyone else making 2 for the queen. 

In March, I requested these purple & blue curves with low volume background drunkard's path blocks. Everyone did such a fab job with the curves!

Watching the mailbox as these started to roll in was exciting and so was choosing a layout. To give the blocks some room to breathe, I added a low volume border, adding in extra length with the top and bottom. No clue how I'm going to quilt it yet, but I love it!