January Bee Blocks

The bee that I'm in (Bee Happy) took a break in November and December, but now that it's the New Year, we're back at it!  This is Janice's month, and she started out the year with a bang!  She wanted two blocks, one using trianlges and one featuring a large scrappy circle set in a square.  She sent us an assortment of Hope Valley to use for the blocks.  Here are mine...

First up is the triangle block.  I debated and went back and forth - I don't know how many times - on which block to use.  I went to Pinterest to try to get some inspiration, and saw this block several times.

It looked like something I wanted to try, especially since I had very little of a solid, and this looked like it would accommodate what I had (the white in this block). 

So when I followed the link, I realized that Jeni, from In Color Order was doing a half-square triangle block of the month, and this was the January block.  Since I've been in kind of a triangle mood lately, I decided that I might just have to do these blocks on my own, as well!  But we'll see how that goes.  I have a layer cake of Half Moon Modern that I've been wondering what to do with, and this just might be the very thing!  But like I said, we'll see.

Anyways, I set to work on this block, and I really love the way it turned out!  I had just enough of the solid to make it.  In fact, the scraps leftover from the solid were too small for me to use in the circle block!

So yeah, onto the circle block.  I was pretty scared about it!  I've done circles before, but this one was going to be using a different method.  When I decided how I wanted the scrappy layout of the circle to look, I started cutting a lot of strips of different sizes (smallest was 3/4" and the biggest was about 2 1/2"), and laying them out in a pattern.  When it came time to actually sew the circle into the square, I was nervous, but I just bit the bullet and did it.  I was going by this tutorial for setting a circle into a dresden.  Got almost done pinning it, but when I got to the end, there was a big clump of the white fabric left.  So I kind of started to panic.

I just took a few deep breaths, decided to take all the pins out (which I wasn't happy about, because that took a long time!), and took a different approach...

I folded the circle in half both in directions to give me a visible crease to go by.  Lined up those creases with the seams in the white fabric, and pinned 4 pins where the seams and creases met.

Then went about pinning in between each pin, which really spread out that clump of fabric.  Between each pin, I allowed myself a little slack with the white fabric.  Once it came time to sew it together, I still had to do some easing in, but it all came together really well! 

So that's it!  I'm glad I'm not behind on anything, because this baby could literally come any day now!

I'm linking up to Sew Modern Monday on Canoe Ridge Creations!  Check out what other people are working on!