What Makes A Great Bee Block?

Grey and white provided - Tutorial

Do you enjoy being part of online (and offline) quilt bees? I do. I like that it forces me to try blocks and colour palettes that I might normally be too intimidated or lazy to try. It's a great way to try something new, without committing yourself to a whole quilt!

I often struggle when it's my turn to be Queen Bee though because I can't decide what to ask my bee mates to make.

I've found that the most successful bee quilts are those that leverage something dominant and make it consistent throughout all of the blocks, whether it's the background, the feature fabrics, the colours, or the design.

I thought I'd share the criteria I use for picking blocks:

• Everyone's 1/4" seam is a little different so I usually choose a block with a lot of background fabric so I can trim down or add to it when I get all the blocks back.
• I love stash bust blocks. I like the scrappy look so I try to find a block that gives people a chance to use their scraps.  
• That said, I also often provide some or all of the fabric so that the quilt will have a unified look. 
• Provide a colour palette or some colour guidance without being too prescriptive. E.g. aqua fabrics and red fabrics, but not aqua fabrics that have orange and white accents and red fabrics with aqua and white accents. I don't want my bee mates to have to go shopping if it's a stash bust bee, so if I have something that specific in mind, I provide the fabric.
• Choose something fairly easy for bee mates to do in about an hour or less. The more complicated it is, the more bee mates may put it off. That said, some of my favourite bee blocks that I've made for others have been very complicated and I've absolutely adored them.
• I try to pick a block that allows bee mates to use their creativity, whether it's in the fabric selection, the block design or the piecing (e.g. improv piecing). 
• Provide a good tutorial and/or clear instructions for the block. 

Please keep in mind that these are just my personal preferences to date. You may have other criteria and I'd love if you shared them in the comments. Aren't we always looking for new ideas?

Here are a few of my favourite blocks over the years:

Simply Woven - All fabrics provided:

Weathervane - Centre square fabric and colour palette provided: 

Arrows - Colour palette provided and low volume background requested: 

Circle of Squares - Background fabric provided, solids bee:

Scrappy Trip - A couple of fabrics provided:

Cross stitch - All fabrics provided:

Improv - All fabrics provided:

Slash and insert block - All fabric provided:

Modern Butterfly - Background and aqua fabric provided: 

Mod Mosaic - Background, colour palette and most fabrics provided:

Confetti Block - Background provided, solids bee:

Snowflake Block - Sashing provided, solids bee:

Feathers - Background provided:

And how do those quilts turn out? Well, I've only fully finished one quilt from bee blocks so far.

This quilt was made with blocks from my Don't Worry {Bee} Happy bee. I provided all of the fabrics for the blocks and provided a tutorial for my bee mates to improv piece the blocks.

Scrap{Bee} 2.0

Made with blocks from my Simply Solids bee (Carmine group) - Top is together, but the rest is still to bee (ha ha) finished.

How about you? What are your favourite bee blocks to make and receive?

Just a Flesh Wound

Warning: This is not for the faint of heart. Drama, drama, drama!

Given how often I wield the vicious instrument known as a rotary cutter, it was bound to happen at some point. Friday afternoon, I sliced my thumb knuckle skin off with my rotary cutter. Sheared it right off. Six stitches later with no guarantee that the cutoff skin will make it, the thumb itself is expected to make a full functional recovery. Yay! That said, I will likely have a crazy scar that will testify to the fact that I have suffered for my craft. I will spare you the visual -- it ain't pretty.

Alas, not only am I suffering physically for my craft, I must now endure endless ribbing from the hubster about how dangerous quilting is. How they will have to study my work BTI (Before Thumb Injury) versus ATI (After Thumb Injury) to see how it will affect my art. How quilting is now considered an extreme sport and we will have to enter it into the X games. How my rotary cutter appears to be sharper than our steak knives. And this is just the beginning, I'm sure...

Oh well, he has to do the dishes and the laundry for the next few days and I'll gladly take a little ridicule over those tasks any day of the week! He he. I'm just so thankful that it wasn't more serious. :)

This incident reminded me of one of the silliest Monty Python scenes I have ever seen. I give you the Black Knight:



I do have something quilty to share with you though. BTI, I finished my Don't Worry {bee} Happy block for Alisha. I hadn't worked with red, aqua and white before. I LOVE it! So crisp and fun. We used this Mod Mosaic tutorial from Oh Fransson! Will definitely be trying this again.

Happy quilting!