Crafty Distractions, Inspiring Links to Read, Your Quilts and Native Australian Bees

Hello – welcome to the weekend and another Bonjour Quilts newsletter. Sit back and relax while I update you on the fun things I’ve been up to (and show you a quilt or two).

What I’m Sewing Crafty Distractions

I’m still not back into my sewing groove. But I’m not sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I seem to have picked up a bit of a paper crush. I’ve been having a great time with my postage stamp punch and my Quilter’s Planner (looking forward to ordering my Planner for 2027).

I’ve also been indulging in some very cute stickers for my 2026 Planner, including Fiona Ariva:

And these hand-drawn beauties from Every Minute a Story:

Another crafty distraction that grabbed me last month was a Christmas/Vincent Van Gogh mash-up paint-by-numbers.

I had no idea it would be so detailed, so it’s taking me a while to get through it. But it’s a lot of fun and nice to work on when in the room with TV watchers. (Especially when you want to be with them but they’re watching something you’re not really interested in…ahem teenage YouTube aficionados.)

I have to keep moving forward on this one so it’s done in time for Christmas.

Around the Interwebs…

Issue 72 of epic Aussie quilting e-magazine, Make Modern is now available!

Clever, colourful, Canadian textile art (interspersed with some cute cat photos) in this Instagram account.

A behind-the-scenes look at an arty short tribute video to the late Time Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show). It’s incredible the amount of work that goes into creating these things – but also great to see you don’t really need anything fancy to do it.

Make your own creative abstract paintings.

A stunning historic book – the binding and cover are amazing. Any book that comes with a special box has my heart.

Today (Sunday, 20 September) is Jelly Roll Day. Mainly the fabric version, but I say go for the pastry version too. You can find some great deals on Jelly Rolls at the Fat Quarter Shop.

Reader Quilts…

Everyone’s favourite – reader quilts! If you’ve made something from Bonjour Quilts patterns please send a photo in. Either email (Kirsty at BonjourQuilts dotcom), or tag me on Facebook or Instagram.

Michelle sewed up this cute version of the Wildwood quilt to match a sage green nursery. I have a free baby size quilt tutorial for this quilt, if you like something very similar for larger sizes then you’ll find the Sweet and Simple Squares quilt pattern useful.

Londa sent me some fantastic photos of quilts she’s made from my patterns. Here we have her version of Diamonds in the Deep (the purply-blue grunge fabric is very celestial!)

This next quilt is sister to Diamonds in the Deep, it’s called Radiant. It has a symmetrical layout rather than the asymmetrical Diamonds configuration.

And finally, here’s Londra’s two versions of the Window Panes quilt pattern. One is the baby quilt size, the other the throw. Both look scrappy with restraint, due to the use of a single style of fabric (polka dots). It’s fun to see the different bindings as well.

Gosh, October’s getting closer. Don’t forget I have a fun Patchwork Skull Block tutorial on the blog.

You could make something small like Jody:

Or maybe something a little bigger like this spooky table runner, sewn by Jessica:

Here’s a fun cushion made from the block by Amanda, who embellished with some flower appliqué.

Or you could go above and beyond like Jenny, who upsized the pattern herself and sewed an epic full size quilt.

Native Australian Bees

As I alluded to in the last newsletter, my husband, youngest kiddo and I attended a Native Beekeeping 101 class/workshop two weeks ago. It was run by Ian (with help from his wife, Sharon) of A Green Soul Native Bees.

The event was held in a plant nursery (of course!) which was lovely to walk through after a brief morning rain shower.

The nursery also has a few chickens and a petting zoo for the kids.

I realised I knew next to nothing about Native Australian bees – all my bee knowledge is of the European honey bee, which is of course an introduced species.

There are something like 1700 native Australian bee types and 70% of them are solitary bees. They do not live in a hive and there are probably lots of them in your backyard right now (unless you don’t live in Australia, in which case, I hate to break it to you but you won’t have any.) They burrow into the ground, into stalks and sometimes into wood.

The great thing about the lesson was learning where the bees live and their habits, and coming to the realisation – hey, I’ve seen that in my yard! It was quite exciting to know that our yard is helping our native bees. It was also great to pick up a lot of tips to make sure it stays bee friendly.

Part of the lesson was a bee hotel workshop. We all got to construct a hotel suitable for solitary bees and their babies.

A note to Aussies, the bee hotels they sell in Bunnings are too shallow. They need to be at least 10cm deep to prevent Gasteruptid wasps taking over the tubes. So check out the depth before you buy – or check out Ian’s site, he makes solid hotels. We bought a big one for our yard, in addition to the 3 ’boutique hotels’ we made on the day.

We also bought one of Ian’s observation blocks, which he also makes.

When you open it up you can see inside the nest tubes, which is very cool.

Here you can see the little bee babies (larvae) in the tubes, filled with food and tree resin (the brown stuff).

After learning about solitary bees we moved on to Native Stingless Bees. There are 11 native bee species that do actually live in a hive.

These little ladies could easily be mistaken for a large ant – that’s what they look like above (in the clear tube leading into the hive). They don’t sting, but it’s not fun having a bunch of them crawl all over you. Very itchy/tickly!

Ian was splitting a hive that day, so we got to see what it looked like inside. He divided the layers/bees and created 2 hives.

Ian had a good look around the top and bottom layers of the hive to make sure the hive was healthy and big enough to be successfully divided. He looked for pests and tried to find the queen/princess cells.

The brown stuff is a mix of tree resin and propolis, which helps keep out pests (or traps them in a sticky mess) and is the structural framework for the hive. They’re such clever little critters.

And yes they make honey, but nowhere near as much as European honey bees. The latter make about 30kg of honey per hive per year, whereas native bees only make around 1kg.

We had a little taste and it was as floral and sweetly perfumed as you would hope!

Some of the brood stayed in the old hive, while Ian transferred some to the new hive.

The final product – two hives instead of one. The bees slowly stopped crawling all over us and returned to their homes over the next 20 minutes.

So, in short, a really interesting 3 hours and I learned a great deal about Australian bees. We will try our best to make our bee hotels enticing and may be able to bring home a Native Stingless Bee hive to our yard one day.

If you’re in Queensland and work at a school, or have a garden/hobby club I would 100% recommend getting Ian in to give the Native Beekeeping 101 lesson. There are so many small things we can do to help nature and the systems we rely upon to survive, and this is one of those. Bees rock!

Cats’ Corner…

From the small insects to the big cats – let’s close out today with our usual dose of cat cuteness. Our two Burmese cats, Tigger and Lulu, have spent many an hour enjoying the free board and lodging we provide. They’re worth every cent.

Not a worry in the world (except the neighbour’s dog, occasionally).

Enjoy Your Weekend

I hope you’ve had a great weekend (Australia) and enjoy your Sunday (US and EU). I promise I’ll do some sewing if you do too!

Until next time,

Kirsty x

Share or Pin for later: