Not Your Mama’s Bee – Month 2

Not Your Mama's Bee - Month 2

So a group of friends and I have gotten together from across the country and started a sewing bee for our children.  This is month two and the kids are still in the “it’s really exciting” phase 😉  Hopefully they can keep that up.  We all know how attention spans can become limited.  But I love this idea for both introducing my daughter to the idea that quilting is something you do WITH people and for the opportunity to show her different techniques and fabrics one block at a time.

This month is Faith’s (freshlemonquilts) daughter’s month.  And Faith and her daughter Avery set the bar a bit higher with a Pinterest board (which I’m totally doing with my daughter right after this post because her month is next).  Avery chose a theme of navy, dark pink, aqua, gold and white colors and any size star block.

So I let Caitlyn dive into my scraps with perhaps a bit of guidance toward what I thought would be good starter fabrics and then she chose the fabrics from the variety that she pulled out. Sound familiar?  I do that exact thing!

My daughter is 5 1/2, so there are definitely some steps that she needs some guidance with such as cutting and ironing and reaching the pedal to sew.  But we are learning something new every time.
This month, with a star block, I decided to introduce her to the fun world of Accuquilt die cutters. She’s been eyeing those machines her whole life I think and I  had a new die from them, the kite die which I thought could be interpreted as a star.

Not Your Mama's Bee - Month 2

The beauty of using the die cutter is that Caitlyn was able to “cut” all of the fabrics herself…and she got some pretty specific shapes. Plus it made it easier to make sure that all of her edges were line up since the cutter is designed to help you do all of that.

Not Your Mama's Bee - Month 2

Here’s a picture of her using it for the first time!!  Isn’t she adorable?!

I had her put the blocks on the design wall to lay out her pattern and understand how all of those pieces fit together.  We auditioned all of the fabrics and we decided that her initial pink fabric was not quite what we wanted so she went back to the stash pile and chose another fabric that worked much better…so we got to talk about contrast and such.  Good lessons!

Not Your Mama's Bee - Month 2

I’ll admit that she was a bit squirrely this time while sewing…let’s chalk it up to summer. But we only had one block to make and it really didn’t have too many seams in the end.

Not Your Mama's Bee - Month 2

My silly girl was excited to take her first picture of her own quilt block (I don’t know why I didn’t think of that last time).  And I was cracking up because she immediately put her feet in the picture…creating that classic photo that so many have horrors of – the foot picture! lol  Oh well.  Little kid feet are allowed I think. 😉

Not Your Mama's Bee - Month 2

Then she gave me a variety of posed pictures based on emotions (this girl has a future in entertainment somewhere) and we ended up with fun group of photos.

Not Your Mama's Bee - Month 2

Not Your Mama's Bee - Month 2

Now we just need to decide WHAT she is going to want for her month.  She tells me she knows…. but I don’t know WHAT that means. lol

14 thoughts on “Not Your Mama’s Bee – Month 2”

  1. What a great idea getting kids involved with their own quilting bee! It actually teaches them math skills and spatial relations without them even realizing it. My Granny taught me to make simple quilt blocks when I was about her age, and I loved the time we spent together. Thanks for the cute post!

  2. I spent the day helping my daughter give her room one last big clean before she leaves for college. Your post made me cry – I feel like my daughter looked just like yours only yesterday. And those memories of her in my sewing room – showing her things she's never seen or done before. Having more time to sew and do my own thing is certainly bittersweet. Thanks for sharing!

  3. Caitlyn, I really like the fabric you used–those deer and birds are adorable! Your blue nailpolish is really fun on those cute feet of yours. I think you might be ready to learn how to crank out pasta on a pasta machine since you've got all those great muscles from cutting out your pieces 🙂 I can't wait to see what you make for YOUR month!

  4. Great block, and Caitlyn is just a doll!! Look at those eyes: I'll bet she gets her way just by fluttering them at you! 🙂 You have a real treasure, and it's so fun to see that you're helping her get a love for sewing! Hugs, H in Healdsburg

  5. Such a wonderful endeavor. I sewed last month with my granddaughters and it was fun. It was clothes not quilts, but I owe the younger one a quilt for her American Girl doll.

  6. I love the idea of a sewing bee to inroduce the younger ones to sewing! My daughter is 4.5, and has been dying to sew with Mommy. Maybe next summer we can start! Plus the bee can make it not too overwhelming all at once! Your daughter is too cute!

    1. It really helps to dd just one block at a time. Even doing a block of the month on her own would be a good idea for her own quilt. So if you can't find other people, you might consider that too!

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