Some making - Bee Sewcial blocks

For June in Bee Sewcial, Debbie, from A Quilter's Table asked us to make Mid-Century Modern inspired blocks in colours from a fairly dark mid-century palette (here). She gave us a great pinboard for inspiration. This bee is about derived inspiration, the Queen gives us a bit of direction and we make what we are inspired to make. In the end, I made those blocks above.



This block I made with no hesitation at all. The melon shapes called to me first from the inspiration board. I had a harder time with the colour choices but in the end I just picked my favourites and went for it. I want to come back to use this shape for a quilt soon I think.



Then I was busy at work, and traveling about, etc for much of the month. When I got back to this bee project, I decided to focus on the rectangles and triangles that are so present in the mid-century modern prints. (By the way, I also need to get back to my real camera, the iphone instagram photos just do not make me happy.)



Again, I picked my favourite colours - the background is navy and looks great in real life. I played around with placement and filled in the background.



That photo above is where I thought I was going to finish. But that squarish block just looked wrong. I looked and looked at it and then I just chopped it in half.

Others would have perhaps used photoshop or drawn it out but I just decided it was not working for me - despite a lot of positive feedback on instagram. So I cut first and then decided how to fix it. As I was cutting I thought, well the worst is that I have to start all over.



In the end, the fix was easy, just rotate it and stick the cut off part on top. Now I like the block a lot, either placed vertical or horizontal, and it has a lot more of that mid-century modern feel to me. Maybe in part it is the rectangular shapes of the prints from that era that made it feel wrong as a square shape, but I am much happier now.

And then I carried the blocks all week and did not get to the post office, so that on the list for Monday lunch as waiting to the end of the day - and then being too late for the post office - clearly isn't working for me.

Don't forget to enter the great giveaway sponsored by Green Fairy Quilts for that layer cake of Gardenvale by Jen Kingwell - enter on this post here. The draw will close at 6 am tomorrow (Monday) when I wake up.

Another reminder -  Q2 of the FAL is also ending and the link for Q2 finishes will open on Tuesday over at Adrianne's blog On the Windy Side. Get your finishes finished and posted. I hope to get one more done in time, we shall see.

I have more sewing to share this coming week and I am excited to have more time for blogging and sewing as my real job winds down a bit for summer, so stay tuned. Of course, I have another "vacation" project to do too, I'll share more about that here shortly too.

Best,

Leanne