Tag Archives: bee block

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In August, Emily pointed us to Bow Bridge in Central Park at spring sunny day by Helen Denisevich for our color inspiration. She asked us to choose two color groupings inspired by the vibrant colors in the watercolor and ink painting. She wanted a 12" x 12" block with a small section of one color group surrounded by the second color group. Any improv we'd like!

I loved the greens in the painting, ranging from yellow-greens into blue-greens, so I pulled fabric for that to be one of my groupings. Then I focused on the pinks in the tree and chose a variety of pinks, light to dark.

My finished block is approximately 12" x 12". The pink section in the center was informed by the shape of my scraps, starting with the largest triangle in the center.

The green section to the left of my center section was informed by scraps that were wedge shaped.

I pieced green strips for the top section, but when that was too boring for me I made a couple vertical slices to insert additional pieced sections.

I love having beautiful, saturated bold colors in a prompt. And the freedom to do any improv pieced we'd like meant that I could just play with the fabric. It was such a joy to create.

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For March, Emily asked us to make improv Sawtooth Stars and to set them within our choice of improv pieces to make blocks approximately 8" x 16". And she asked us to use some pink.

The first thing I did was to sew an improv Sawtooth Star (my favorite traditional block). I couldn't decide on just one pink, so I chose a variety of pinks for the star with a pop of yellow, all set in a turquoise background.

Then I got to work on some improv piecing. I started with this row of pink squares. This is the playful stage of improv where I have no preconceived plans and I'm just putting parts together.

I decided to angle my irregular sawtooth star in my larger block and added sections to each side of it. Then I used my strip of improv squares to add to the top and bottom. I continued to build out from there until I got up to approximately 8" x 16". I'm excited to get this block in the mail to Emily.

P.S. Quilts Unscripted Bee now has an Instagram account. Please follow if you'd like to see what everyone is making for the bee.

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In June, Chris shared photos of Pueblo pottery as our inspiration for improv piecing our blocks for her. Her husband has the book From This Earth: The Ancient Art of Pueblo Pottery by Stewart Peckham which inspired her prompt. She asked us to make 1-2 blocks that could be square or rectangular and around 12-13" on one side. Our palette was to Kona Natural, Bone, Ivory, Haze, or Dove for the background and Kona Hibiscus, Crimson, Roasted Pecan, or Indigo for the features color, or similar.

These are not colors typically in my stash so I took the opportunity to add to my solids and placed an order. Here's what I got. (I label the selvage of my solids in Sharpie so I know what is what.) When my fabrics arrived I really loved all the light neutrals together. I may circle back to using them all together in some way.

For my first block, I settled on Haze and Hibiscus. There was an image with skinny stripes in a stair step pattern that caught my eye.

These are my initial pieces. My purple skinny strips finish at 1/8" wide. I wanted to join them at a right angle so I cut two sections of my strips at opposite 45 degree angles. The section in the upper right is larger color block sections. This resulted in a y-seam.

I started by piecing my strips on the 45 degree angle seam, figuring I could be more precise with matching up my purple strips if I sewed this seam first.

Next I pieced in the center section and added more background around the right and bottom sides.

Here's my finished block. I think it finished at about 10" x 14".

For my second block, I chose Ivory & Roasted Pecan. I picked a small section of one of the designs that made me think of improv triangles.

Here it is before trimming up. I paired my improv triangles with smooth improv curved piecing. It's slightly larger than my first block.

I hear Chris is working on her quilt and look forward to seeing it come together!