My Bee Hive Quilt

 At the start of last year, I joined an online quilting bee called The Bee Hive Quilts (you can find out more about it here).  I was paired with 11 other women, we were each assigned a month over the next year to be the "queen bee", and off we went.  It was so fun each month to make a quilt block picked by the queen bee that reflected their different personalities and tastes.  All told I ended up making 24 quilt blocks for the ladies in the bee hive.  I can really see an evolution of my skills throughout the year - my piecing got more precise and my fabric choices got more refined as the year went long.  Below is a compilation of the 24 blocks that I made:

Finally in September, it was my month!! It took me forever to pick a quilt block and the colors I wanted, but I finally settled on the spinwheel block with white, gray, black, and 3 shades of blue placed specially in the block.  Here were some example blocks that I made up to show fabric color placement.

 By this point 8 of the 11 ladies I had started the year with were left and each one of those 8 ladies made me 1 or 2 blocks and sent them my way along with some sweet goodies and extras.  I loved opening reach and every package as I knew that each one had been made with care and thoughtfulness.  Finally, I had all my blocks, but by then craft show sewing and Christmas gift sewing had kicked into high gear.  Well, now it's the new year and I was determined to turn that pile of blocks into a finished quilt. So up on design wall they went where I figured out the layout, how many blocks I still needed to make, and what kind of boarder to add.

 Finally on Thursday on this past week, I got the top all sewn together, the back pieced (extra soft minky fabric!), and it basted.  I was going to wait to quilt it because I had been promising my husband to get his quilt finished up, but that sweety knew how much this quilt meant to me and let me jump my quilt to the top of the pile.  Thursday night I stayed up way too late getting it quilted with a simple all over stripple. And then Friday morning, I got the quilt trimmed, bound, labeled and in the washer.  I had to wait until today (Saturday) for my husband to be around to hold it up for me to get pictures of it (again - such a sweety!!).

And now, this gorgeous and beautiful quilt lives on my coach where it'll be loved and snuggled with nearly ever day.

I know this post is getting a bit long, but if you want to hear a bit more about why this quilt means so much to me, then keep reading.  Don't say you weren't warned though.

Ok, I'm gonna let you in on something I don't normally talk about, but it'll help to give some context as to why this quilt means so very much to me.  See, I struggle with depression and anxiety. I went through a particularly rough stretch of anti-partum depression while I was pregnant with our 2nd boy just after we had made a cross-country move. Not fun.  I still struggle with some form of depression and anxiety on a daily basis.  And before y'all get "helpful" let me just say that yes, I see a therapist regularly, I'm not suicidal, and I'm not "just sad". In fact, most days, I'm good. Life is good. I'm surrounded by good and I'm so very blessed and I can see all of that. But some days, it's a struggle just to breathe.  And most days, even on the good days, the nagging darkness is lurking in the background just waiting to swallow me up.  I don't usually talk about it because it's a very personal struggle that can and has caused so much pain.  But anyways, back to the context. I say all this to say, when I'm having a hard day, it's hard for me to remember the good, to remember that I'm loved, to remember that I'm cared for. So to have this gorgeous quilt finished and on the coach where I can see it every day means so much to me.  This quilt so beautifully speaks to me in so many ways - the colors, the fabrics, the interlocking pinwheels, the meandering quilting, the deliciously soft and cuddly backing - all combined into something so perfect.  But the most important thing this quilt says is that I'm cared for - I matter.  Eight lovely ladies who started out as complete strangers, over the course of a year, have become dear friends who so lovingly took the time to make 12 beautiful quilt blocks just for me.  Those blocks are each special and unique, yet they all joined so beautiful and cohesively together to make the center 12 blocks in this quilt.  I'm so humbled and honored by their generosity and thoughtfulness, and this quilt will always make me feel like I'm getting a hug wherever I use it. 

 Thank you dear friends!!