Blocks, blocks, blocks and more blocks

I've been feeling a bit grotty for two or three weeks.  Nothing major or dramatic but just lots of life's little upsets that all combined together to make me feel stressed and anxious and I can't really get down to proper sewing when I feel like that.  Things are resolving themselves so I'm starting to feel a little sunnier.  But in the meantime, I got on with a few bee blocks because those are kind of small self contained projects to keep me ticking over.

Natalia asked for a simple stack of books block and I've put this one first in the post so it will come up in thumbnail in those blogs where I'm in the sidebar with small pics.  If you spot it in someone's sidebar in thumbnail, please tell me I didn't make Wall-E.  It's no use.  I already know I accidentally made Wall-E.  If you squint you'll see him - he even has a little scarf on I think.

Melissa asked for a road vehicle for her son's trains, planes and automobiles quilt so I made her a Land Rover Defender in camouflage.  I live in the countryside and all the local farmers drive Land Rovers.  They are properly manly cars that can drive up the side of hills and through streams with large boulders in them, through thick snow and across the desert.  This car says "I am a man and proud of it".

Amber asked for a Christmas block so I made this block which was inspired by a Christmas card I bought for my parents years and years ago which looked a lot like this.  My two sisters and I have an informal competition each year to send my parents the best Christmas cards - only decent cards make it to my parents' mantlepiece so it's a tense moment when you find out whether your card made the cut each year.  I think I made it that year.

Yvonne sent out some Three Sisters Oasis fabrics and asked for a flower so I used my favourite stitch on my machine which is the blanket stitch.  I like it because it's really really neat and makes me look good.  My blanket stitch isn't that neat but as long as I don't tell anyone I did it on the machine, people can reel in awe at the neatness of my handwork.  It's a win win.

It was my month in the Ringo Pie bee and I asked for Design Classics.  Everyone else made amazing blocks which I showed you in previous posts but I didn't have a clue what to make.  I was going to make one of those old green telephones I grew up with but I thought that would be too hard.  I was going to make my favourite car, a Fiat 500, but I thought that would be too hard.  Then finally I realised I could make a union jack.  As I've made and designed about eleventy twelve UJ blocks, I can practically do these in my sleep so this was a quick easy block for me to do.  It was about 4" X 6" but set into a 12" white block but I've been getting so carried away recently with whiting out the background of my photos that actually it just looks like it's floating away down the blog here.  

Angela sent us some yellow and grey fabrics and we could make whatever we wanted with squares and rectangles so I made a block I've wanted to make forever, the brick wall block - I also want to make a brick wall quilt but that'll have to be added to the mile long list of quilts I want to make one day when I have some spare time...

And finally, Reene sent out some Hope Valley and let us make whatever we wanted at all so I dragged out my Baby Go and its equilateral triangle cutter and cut a few little triangles and framed them in this kind of wonky random thang.  

Corey asked for quilts on a line and I made this somewhat over the top psychedelic block.   I'm not quite sure what I was thinking.  The trouble is Peg and Becca from Sew Fresh Fabrics keep sending me these wonderful fabrics and I just love them so much, I get overexcited and kind of throw them all in together and perhaps sometimes less is more.  

This last block feels a bit Magical Mystery Tour to me.  If you don't know what I mean because you're too young, please keep that information to yourself because my birthday is coming up shortly so I will be getting even older before too long.