Bee Inspired Terrarium Quilt

A couple years ago I joined a quilting bee for the first time.  The group of ladies are amazing, see my Instagram post for more details on the group, and when it came time to do my prompt I chose a spring terrarium theme featuring improved pieced circles in green and flashes of spring flower colors.  My bee mates went above and beyond and sent in some gorgeous blocks.

I held onto the blocks for over a year when I finally decided to to cut them into quarter circles and mix and match the bits.  I then started playing with different layouts on my design wall and finally settled on an over lapping layout and finished the quilt!

After I'd finished the quilt I decided it need a little more and began to embellish it with Aurifil thread 12 wt.  The 12 wt worked perfectly.  It was easy to work with, which was important because I really don't know how to embroider, and the sheen added just the right amount of interest to the different shapes and forms.

I ended up using 7 different colors of Aurifil threat, including the forty3 I used for the background quilting.  I wanted to used muted colors so that they didn't over power the rest of the quilt.  When I completed a new element I would layout the quilt and see what empty space caught my eye next then I'd start my next embellishment.  This helped me from overloading one area of the quilt with embellishments while leaving other areas blank.

I spent about 2 weeks working on adding details to the quilt.  I don't usually spend that much time on finishing details but it was so worth it and since I really didn't know what I was doing I had fun making it up as I went.  I hope that my bee mates will be happy with the finished quilt, especially since I chopped up everyone's blocks.

 

It was inspiring to have such wonderful blocks to work with and beautiful thread.  I really enjoy our little quilting bee.  It has been a great way for me to explore more of my quilting creativity as well as challenging me to grow my skill set.  I did a second prompt for last year and I've already began to receive blocks.  For my second prompt I wanted to give everyone some fun relaxing sewing so I went with my favorite design element, stripes!  I've already began receiving blocks and putting them on my design wall.

I've been adding to the wall myself and while my Terrarium quilt is on the small size this one is growing into a large quilt fast.  I really can't wait to start assembling this one.

"Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." Hebrews 12:14-15