BeeSewcial - Let's Get Planning

May is my month to be Queen Bee for BeeSewcial. I've known almost from the start what I wanted to  explore with this group. I'm asking my beemates to channel their inner urban planner this month. Our theme is direction.

My inspiration is Stephen Von Worley's maps coloured by orientation. I find his maps fascinating and would love to see what we could create with fabric. I would like each of my beemates to create a couple of neighbourhoods/city areas (2 - approx. 12.5" x 12.5" blocks) or one big neighbourhood/city area (approx. 12.5" x 24.5") so we can build a city.

Like most cities, some neighbourhoods are grids, others partial grids and still others are all curves or some combination of all three. Different areas of a city are planned over time by different people, but they still work together. Applies well to a bee quilt, no?

For some additional inspiration, I some photos I took on the plane to and from California to get a feel of what different cities look like from the air. Google Maps is also great for exploring layout ideas, but feel free to make it up as I did in my test blocks below.

Some guidelines so the blocks can work together:

• Background - medium to dark greys (no Pepper or Black). You can use one value for the background or several like I did for mine. I used greys in the Kona range from Coal to Charcoal, but it doesn't have to be Kona. 
• For Stephen's work, roads at approx. 90 degrees to each other have the same hue. For our purposes, the colours within a neighbourhood have the same hue, but can have different values of that hue (great for using scraps). 
• Please have at least one road leading out of your neighbourhood so I can link it to other neighbourhoods.
• Aim for roads to be between 1/2"-ish (residential roads) to 2"-ish wide (highways). 
• For those who would like to give our city some water, which every city or town needs - light to medium greys.
• I'm not a fan of appliqué and would prefer pieced blocks.

Here are my test blocks:

For anyone who would like to play along, you are more than welcome to do so! Add your blocks to #inspiredbybeesewcial on Instagram. We'd love to see what you do with this challenge. 

Questions? Fire away!