Monday, November 22, 2010

Robin's mod blocks

My block for Debbie... inspired by those butterfly roofs that were so popular with mid-century design. I always wondered about them. Living inside a house with a roof like this would mean the interior of the house had a low ceiling and thus made for a cozier space. As the house expanded outwards, the ceiling slopes upward thus creating an expansive feel. It must have been something to live in a space like this, but what did they do about the rain? Did it pond up there in that bend? Pardon me for allowing my mind to wander...

A second block, made to mimic the lines of the first:
For Amanda my chevron turned out to look like a symbol from the periodic table of elements... well maybe in another language.

Have a wonderful holiday season everybody! See you in January!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Mid Mod for November

I am so excited that I finally managed to distill all the ideas running around in my head into something fairly coherent!  Here it is:

I am asking each of you to make me a rectangular block inspired by Mid Century Modern homes.  I have organized both a gallery and a set on Flickr of images that I love.  Apparently, according to Flickr, sets are your own images; galleries are other people's Flickr images.  Although "my" images were all lifted from google :).  Your rectangular block should be in the general area of 9" x 15" and use a kind of outline style similar to my mock up.  I will send you grey fabric for the background and some green and blue strips to use for piecing.

Some of you may recall that I earlier mentioned that I might feature applique during my month.  The image of a George Nelson clock was my inspiration for this idea, but it didn't seem to offer enough opportunity for creativity.  Since the image is strikingly similar to an idea I had many months ago for a dandelion quilt, it may yet show up!

Have I left anything out?  I can't wait to see what you all come up with!!

Monday, November 8, 2010

Amanda’s BFC (big flippin’ chevron)

Here is my chevron block for Amanda. This block is 20". It's huge, but I really like the size because she'll be able to make a whole quilt easily using just the blocks from the bee quilters. I should have thought of that when it was my turn. Oh well, next time...

At first this seemed like a super easy block, until I started trying to figure out how to actually put it together. I ended up needing to draw it to figure out where all the seams needed to go. I have a need to do the least amount of seams necessary. It's a disease.



Catching Up

Saturday was my catch up day and I finished these two blocks for Cheryl and Amanda.

First up is Cheryl's right angle block. I searched for right angle pictures in an image search and was inspired by this balcony image:

from here.

Here's my very literal translation into a block.

Cheryl's block


For Amanda's block, I started cutting prematurely and with no plan at all which resulted in one of the arms of the chevron being crazily pieced. Thanks for sending so much fabric! It was a lifesaver for me.

Amanda's block

Jon was looking through the pictures on my camera and stated, without prompting, "Ooh, this is really cool! It looks very 1960's." He laughed when I told him the purpose of this bee.

Amanda's block

And, here's the full on shot. I almost cropped out my thread catching sock, but left it in there because I'm sure you can all relate!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Links

Hi All, I just wanted to share with you a couple of links... for consideration on our sidebar.

From Amanda, our group on Flickr

Grain Edit, a blog devoted to design work from the 1950's - 1970's



Enjoy! Robin

Monday, November 1, 2010

Welcome to Yahaira!

Hi all,

I just wanted to let you know of a slight change in the cast of Mid Mod Quilters!  While Malka remains excited about mid-century design, she found herself unable to find the time to make blocks for our bee (she has kids going to college, a book coming out, a shop to run...!)  I think we've all been there, very much wanting to have time to do something, but just not finding a way to make it work and feeling sick and guilty instead of fun and quilty! 

So, the lovely Yahaira of Bitter Purl has agreed to take over for Malka.  In fact, Yahaira has really stepped up to the bat...Malka is going to send the un-stitched packets of fabric to her and Yahaira is going to play catch-up for us! 

I've updated the directory in Google Docs, please be sure that you send packages to the right place!

Happy November,
Rossie

a chevron for m'lady

I hope it suits you!  20" is big!!!