Setting Direction

Um, so it's been a while, eh? It's been a little stupid busy around here since January and at the end of the day, I just didn't have the energy to blog. Kiddos are away at camp this week (woot woot!) and lo and behold, I've got some energy back. LOL

My current project is my 2016 BeeSewcial quilt. My month for BeeSewcial was all about direction -- I asked my BeeSewcial mates to help me make a village or city. And boy, did they deliver! I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to share what the fabulous blocks they made, but here goes:

From Leanne at She Can Quilt:

A post shared by Leanne (@shecanquilt) on May 22, 2016 at 6:37pm PDT

A post shared by Leanne (@shecanquilt) on May 22, 2016 at 1:29pm PDT

From Stephanie at Spontaneous Threads:

From Felicity at Felicity Quilts:

From Karen at Capitola Quilter:





From Kari at Craft Happy:

A post shared by Kari Vojtechovsky (@quiltsforthemaking) on Jun 17, 2016 at 2:49pm PDT

A post shared by Kari Vojtechovsky (@quiltsforthemaking) on May 29, 2016 at 7:25pm PDT

From Anne at play crafts:

A post shared by Anne (@playcrafts) on Jun 4, 2016 at 9:29am PDT

A post shared by Anne (@playcrafts) on Jun 11, 2016 at 8:32am PDT

From Debbie at A Quilter’s Table:





From Hillary at Entropy Always Wins:

A post shared by Hillary Goodwin (@entropyalwayswins) on May 22, 2016 at 5:07pm PDT

A post shared by Hillary Goodwin (@entropyalwayswins) on May 21, 2016 at 6:06pm PDT

From Marci at Marci-Girl Designs:







Roundabout?! I adore roundabouts and am so excited that my quilt will have one. If you check out Marci's Instagram feed, you'll see how she did it.

Aren't these so fun?


And here are my blocks: 

If you have a chance to check out the images on the #beesewcial feed on Instagram, you'll see that the blocks have back story. So cool!

After receiving the blocks, I'll admit that I got a little (ahem...very) anxious about doing these blocks justice. I pulled them out multiple times over the past year and played with the layout. My rule was this: each block had to connect with at least one other block, but I could add roads and negative space. 

More grid-like:

A little less grid-like:

Definitely playing with some alternative grid work:

After a lot of mulling and photos and rearranging and mulling and photos...repeat, I found a layout that I loved and started putting it together. It's just about done so I will share it soon.

Cheers!

Modern Block Monday - Transitions

For September's Bee Sewcial theme, Anne from playcrafts chose the theme transitions. I decided to do an improv, bargello like block to mimic the colours in and the reflective water of her inspiration painting, Central Park by Leonid Efremov.

Getting started - lots of improv strips.

More progress. 

The finished block. 

Approx. 17" by 24".

Check out what my bee mates made for Anne in the #beesewcial feed on Instagram.

You are always welcome to follow along with the prompts and post your blocks to Instagram under the #inspiredbybeesewcial.

Mmmm Bacon Bee Sewcial Block - Modern Block Monday

I'm a little behind in sharing my bee blocks for Bee Sewcial this past year. I adore this bee because we are given a prompt for the month and we are to design the block(s). It's a little daunting sometimes, I'll admit, but what a fantastic creative stretch.

And speaking of creative stretches, July's Bacon Consideration prompt by Debbie at A Quilter's Table  was the first and only (so far) food prompt I've been challenged with.

For my blocks, I went with raw bacon:

And cooked bacon:

Debbie has finished her bacon quilt, which she calls Baconrific. Do check it out -- it's aptly named!

You are always welcome to follow along with the prompts and post your blocks to Instagram under the #inspiredbybeesewcial.

Modern Block Monday - Lake Country

The wonderful Felicity from Felicity Quilts was our Bee Sewcial Queen Bee for the month of June. She chose the theme of Lake Country and we were to do blocks of blue and green.

Here are my contributions:

Felicity received her blocks and has started playing around with layout. Looking great!

If you want to follow along with the Bee Sewcial gang, check out #beesewcial and #inspiredbybeesewcial on Instagram.

Modern Block Monday - Triangles

Happy Monday, all! I got to check out Quilt Canada 2016 in Toronto on Friday, which was awesome, but I'll tell you more about that in a future post. Today, I want to play a little catch up on my Bee Sewcial blocks. For April's Bee Sewcial theme, Marci (@marci_girl) from Marci Girl Designs picked repeating triangles in blues. Mmm!

Block 1 that I made for her:

Check out that improv Y-seam. Bam!

Block 2 for Marci:

She seemed to really like them so Phew! :)

To see the blocks my beemates did (very much worth doing!), check out #BeeSewcial on Instagram. If you'd like to follow along with this bee, tag your blocks to #inspiredbybeesewcial. The more, the merrier!

Modern Block Monday - Layers

March's theme for Bee Sewcial was layers. Hillary (@entropyalwayswins on Instagram) wanted blocks that conveyed layers in turquoises, blues, oranges, greys and whites.

I knew what I wanted to do with one of the blocks early on. I did layers of the Fibonacci sequence on the first block, both horizontally and vertically.

The second block took a while to figure out though. In the end, I used some of the leftovers from the first block and then added more improv layers in the colour order going from warm to cool and back to warm again.

To see the blocks my beemates did, check out #BeeSewcial on Instagram. If you'd like to follow along with this bee, tag your blocks to #inspiredbybeesewcial.

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!

Modern Block Monday - BeeSewcial - Let's Get Comfortable

While January's Linear theme for BeeSewcial was a good challenge, February's theme was a stretch to say the least. Actually, that was the theme -- Stretch! Karen (@capitolaquilter on Instragram) had us design and make blocks in 'denim' colours with neutrals using the Stretch theme. So interesting and so challenging. After the initial relief of realizing that we weren't working in actual denim, I will admit thinking, "What did I get myself into?!" No, I can do this! I think.

Her inspirational photos and instructions were very helpful. I took the organic roots photo as inspiration for my blocks. I started building out one block of organic curving lines. Once it got to about 14" square, I cut it into 2 to make the foundation of both blocks. I added an inset 'jean hole' to break up the negative space on one of the blocks. The blocks didn't turn out like the inspirational photo I started with, but I'm happy with where they went.

One beemate thought they looked like ligaments. Huh. Hadn't even thought of that, but it's true!

To see more of what this bee is up to, check out #beesewcial on Instagram and if you'd like to play along, you can post your blocks to #inspiredbybeesewcial. Come play!

Modern Block Monday - BeeSewcial - Let's Get Linear

Hi all, this is my first bee block for a new bee I joined this year. I'm pretty psyched to be joining the talented women of BeeSewcial. Solid, improv designs according to a theme. Just the creative challenge I am up for! And a six week window for completion is the cherry on top!

Stephanie (@SpontaneousThreads on Instragram) was our Queen Bee for January. She requested deep yellows and neutrals with a pop of hot colour using Let's Get Linear (Line) as the inspiration. Check out her blog post for more information about the direction. Very cool!

We could do two blocks of around 12.5" by 12.5" or one block of 12.5" by 24.5". I thought I'd try the one larger block.

To see more of what this bee is up to, check out #beesewcial on Instagram and if you'd like to play along, you can post your blocks to #inspiredbybeesewcial. Come play!