Bee Sewcial - November is my month

November is my month to set the inspiration and ask for Bee Sewcial. 

We have has a couple of months of minimalism, which is one of my favourite modern quilt approaches. However, I decided that I a break from all the negative space. I also have to admit that while I love the kind of quilt I am asking for  - a colourful improv sampler - I find it hard to imagine the crazy colours and lack of space. So this is a perfect project to get  help with.

Here is my request to my bee mates:

Theme: Maximalist (is that a word or a concept, anyway you know what I mean) and all the colours with no negative space. I am aiming for a happy celebration of colour and improv with lots of movement. A quilt that will make one smile and want to dance.

Please make me the equivalent of about 2 - 12.5" blocks but you can make pieces in any shape and size, curved or straight or a bit of both. I am quite happy if you don't trim your pieces, which will leave me options for piecing the final quilt. Also, if you have little bits or practice bits feel free to throw them in too, I will use everything you send. I want to make this a big quilt.

I would like you to make improv blocks and the primary quilt inspiration for both the idea and colour scheme is this quilt by Lucy Summers blu-shed.blogspot.ca/2012/03/wednesday-binding.html 

Colours: The rainbow is open to you but try to go for an overall look at is happy and reads aqua yellow pink orange purple apple-green rather than blue red dark-green. Use mostly saturated colours in mediums (from the light medium dark approach to fabrics) but you should add some lights or darks for contrast but try to focus on the overall block reading as medium not pastel. Avoid white, grey, black, tan, brown. 

Improv: If at all possible, don't use your ruler for blocks, even those blocks with fairly straight lines, but if you want or need to use it that is ok too. Consider the books and work by Lucy Summers, Sherri Lynn Wood, Gwen Marsden, Jacquie Gehring for inspiration. This is a good opportunity to try something you have not yet tried. 

Background: None, fill your block with improv. But it is ok to have some edges, just aim for the block to read as having edges as opposed to negative space. Also I might well trim those edges to make the blocks fit together.

Here is a pinboard for consideration www.pinterest.com/shecanquilt/bee-sewcial-inspiration/ . But please don't feel limited to the board. I will try to add more to it as the month goes on. Consider this a month to just play with improv and colour.




So last night I made the block above as a way to show what I was getting at. Today, Hillary, who has already made a fantastic block - go here - mentioned that she had a lot of negative space. So I added the bit above about edges being ok, it is hard to do some kinds of improv without having some bits of just edges.

Then I had a look at my own block. Yup, I automatically included negative space, even if it is bright. So I trimmed the block - see the picture at the beginning of the post and I now have edges, at least my personal definition of edges.

The members of Bee Sewcial have set up a hashtag #inspiredbybeesewcial for those who want to use our inspiration and make their own projects. Feel free to join in with us on instagram if you like.

Best,

Leanne