Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop with Quiet Play

Hi! If you are stopping by from Quiet Play, Welcome! I am so happy to have new visitors, and hope you'll sit and stay a while. :) (I'm supposed to be posting on the 3rd, which I am in the states, but honestly, I don't know what time or day it is in Australia, so hopefully I'm not too late. sorry if I am.) ;)

I'm so excited to be participating in the lovely Kristy's blog hop today! I love the idea of finding ways to use up your orphaned paper pieced blocks, which seems to be a common theme around here lately. (I've been receiving orphaned Bee blocks in the mail like crazy lately as part of Quilting for a Cause. I am loving it!) But for today, I'm happy to use my own blocks for myself. (mwahaha. I'm so selfish. j/k.)

Of course I had a million ideas of what I wanted to make, but in the end I decided to make a "toy box" to keep in our living room. We just moved and are still settling in a little, and have been using a big red tub for all the toys that the boys play with downstairs. It is not awesome. Luckily we have 4 open shelves in our bookshelf, so it works out perfectly! What do you think?

As I hinted to yesterday, I used the tutorial by Oh Fransson! It's great. I did make a few modifications. I changed the size to fit the space in the bookcase, and as I didn't have enough interfacing, I only did one layer on all the blocks, as well as excluded the batting or fusible fleece (ok that last one was more because I didn't look at the pattern again and now I wish I had put the batting in. oh well.) My bin doesn't have as great of structure as I would have liked, but I think it's pretty good and will definitely do the job. :)


I paper pieced my first letters especially for the front. I mean, we need to know what is in there right?!

The letters were a lot of fun putting together, and they were a lot easier to draft than I thought they would be. If I ever get a minute, or a lot of minutes, I think I'll put together a whole alphabet! :)

I'm planning on making some pillows for our couches and a wall hanging for the living room in blues and greens, so I think when those are done this will match great. :) These are some of my favorite colors!

The front and sides are made up of 3/4" and 1" strips.

For the back I wanted to use a very special block! I'm sure my boys won't always remember which way to put the "box" in the bookcase, so here's the other option

This is one of my FAVORITE bee blocks! Anna of Six White Horses made it for me. I feel honored as this pattern has definitely become a favorite around blog land and flickr. (I should have had her sign it. lol.) :) I don't know that I'll ever get all my bee blocks made into a quilt, perhaps one day, so I figure this is the perfect way to get them out of my stash and be able to enjoy them!


I didn't realize until I was taking these pictures, but I really lucked out with the quilting! I did some diagonal quilting around the front and sides of the box.

This is the corner. Look how close my stitches lined up! I definitely didn't plan that. but I love it!

and the other corner. awesome.

I even got some stitches to line up with the bottom. I used a heavier weight cotton for the bottom to help it hold up with any wear from being drug around the house. 

Denyse Schmidt. :).

The bottom of the inside is Amy Butler. No idea what the other print is, and the strips are a mix of everything.

I love the yellow/orange on the inside. I chose that to match the bee block on the back.

I didn't want to take anything away from the beautiful block, so I did some simple echo quilting on the back.

I think it looks pretty good like this. Maybe I'll keep it facing this way instead.


And there you have it! If you have extra quilt blocks lying around, make a basket, box, or whatever you want to call it. :)

Thank you Kristy for letting me play along! Make sure to stop by Quiet Play and check out the rest of the line up!! Kate shared some AMAZING tiny blocks yesterday. And I can't ever get enough of Kristy's umbrellas! This is only the beginning, so there is a LOT more great stuff to come! :)

Hope you all have a happy Friday and a wonderful weekend!