I've joined my first monthly block bee and I'm very excited about it! It's the True North Bee and it's made up entirely of Canadian quilters. The blocks have to be free patterns or tutorials so members don't have to buy any patterns. While we can request the colours we want, we can't ask for specific fabrics, again so no one has to buy anything to participate in the bee. The only exception that was made was for something like Kona white, which (the rules state) most people would already have.
The queen for September is Rhonda, @quiltnutcreations on IG, and she asked for these maple leaf blocks in fall colours - moss/olive greens, rusty oranges/red and mustard/goldy yellows - with Kona white for the background. Unfortunately, I'm one of those rare people who don't have Kona white. I do have some Kona solids, but no white, and my local shops all carry the Northcott solids, so I'm not able to easily get it. Fortunately, I do have plenty of the Northcott white, which is a white white, like the Kona white, so I'm hoping that works well enough. It doesn't show up as white in the pictures because it was a dark, gloomy day when I took the pictures, but it really is white.
I chose this Island Batik green with rust/orange throughout for one of the leaves. I really love this fabric, with its leafy print and the variation in the greens and oranges.
This mustardy orange is from Northcott. It is a great mottled print, which certainly reminds me of fall leaves.
My blocks are in the mail now and I'm really looking forward to seeing Rhonda's quilt come together. The blocks I've seen from the other bee members have all been beautiful, too.
My month will be November and I'm working on a fun, scrappy block. I'll have a tutorial for it near the end of October, so keep an eye out for that 😊
Have you ever been a part of a monthly block bee? Did you finish the quilt made from the blocks made by your fellow members?
An all Canadian Bee sounds like fun. Love the green leaf!
ReplyDeleteI've never been part of a bee but it's so fun seeing other bees and their prompts. The self-portrait one recently was fascinating!
ReplyDeleteLovely blocks Leanne, I have been part of a few bees and have completed quilts from most of them, even the one where I only received half of the blocks!
ReplyDeleteFunny that you should ask about finishing the quilt from "bee" blocks... I belonged to a quilt forum years ago - and we did a block lotto. The previous month's winner would choose the next block and then pull a name from all the participants to be the recipient. In the 24 months that we did the lotto, I never won - until the very last month - and there were only 8 participants. So I have 8 blocks... About a year ago, I decided that I needed to make 4 more to finish this quilt! I pulled fabrics and cut the block sections... and that's where it still sits! Now we're renovating, and the parts are in a box, somewhere in the house... I'm going to make it my New Year's resolution to finish that quilt! Of course, I'm going to pull fabrics to make some maple leaf blocks, because your's just look so great! (And I've been stashing fabric to make these blocks - I'm finally going to make a quilt for me!)
ReplyDelete