My Beatnik Quilt

Cheers all! Here are my blocks so far! I'm going to get working on this soon! I'd love to see progress shots of your quilts as well... Robin

Mondrian's Nephew was a Beatnik

Okay ladies, It's my turn to host and I've got something that looks difficult, but once you get started you will find it's suuper easy and fun! The thing to keep in mind is shot cottons are very easy to work with and in the end they will all look fabulous togeter! I'll send the instructions with the fabric, but in case you can't wait to see what I have in store, here is the assignment (click on it to enlarge):

A Block for Rebekah

Hi Rebekah! I've finished your block! No, it's not this one... this one is tooo boring!

For you, I reworked my block and made you this... which is juuuust right! Hope you like it! Cheers!

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!

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

Artist Matte Stephens

and Mid Century Style

Enjoy! Robin

Another block for Cheryl

Trying to use up the fabric Cheryl sent, I made this 12" block:

All I can say is "heaven help Cheryl!"

Open-ended:

Wow Cheryl, You really had me stumped here! I'm not sure if this is what you were aiming for, so let me tell you about my thought process. The words that stuck out to me in her directions, were barkcloth and curves. I googled barkcloth and came up with this:

It didn't contain the curves she was looking for so I came up with this:

Still, this design seemed plain and quite circular, so I moved on...

Now this was both atomic and curved... but I wanted to do something other than boomerangs...

After more searching, and many more images, I realized a commonality to all this was that the shapes were neither symmetrical or complex. Some of them stood alone, and some were embellished with lines and other shapes layered on top:

I tried here to use each fabric more than once, thinking that they would play off each other and unify the piece. I also kept my shapes rather simple... for ease of construction as well as simplicity in design. The fabrics you chose Cheryl are lovely indeed! Looking at it now, I'm thinking perhaps the black fabric should have been used for larger shapes or at least outlined with another fabric, but all in all I think these work well with each other. In the end, I'm thinking if I have time, I'll put together simpler blocks with the leftovers... smaller simpler blocks may help to offset this loud little puppy.

I'm very excited to see how the rest of you interpret Cheryl's instructions. I'm thinking this really could work because the fabrics she gave us are all related. It will be interesting to see the thought processes that went into this one. Please do comment on your trains of thought when posting your pictures! Good Luck!

Ladies...

My submission for this month's quilt. Don't worry, I'm not always on top of things like this! I have to admit, it does feel good to be ahead of my "to do" list. Anyway, as you can see I ran out of fabric. I'm hoping you have more white Jess! I hope this is in line with what you were thinking of. I do like thinking outside of the box and am grateful for the assignment. Next!

P.S. You've probably already seen it, but I blogged about this block on my blog already. Rossie, is there any way you can insert a link to this page on the sidebar? I find it helpful in anticipating what's coming round the bend next!

My Panel...

Ladies, I hate to brag, but I think I'm the first one done with our panel this month! At least from what I know... does posting it here first count as first one done? Anyway, I was thrilled to be working with such beautiful fabric and it was a fun pattern to execute! Thanks Rossie! You all don't have to worry that I'll be the first one out every month... I just happened to stumble on a little time yesterday to take care of this. I promise I wont be the most annoying one in the bunch! Can't wait to see what you are cooking up for next month Cheryl!

I blogged about it today on my own blog, and if you don't mind my shameless plug, here's my link! Hope you all are having a happy summer!

Housekeeping!

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Bee members, here are your month assignments!

July 2010  - Rossie
August 2010 - Jess
September 2010 - Cheryl
October 2010 - Amanda
November 2010 - Debbie

January 2011 - Rebekah
February 2011 - Robin
March 2011 - Lauren
April 2011 - Blair
May 2011 - Malka Yahaira
June 2011 - Jacquie

I do believe I have accommodated everyone's wishes.
If something comes up and you need to swap your month, that's fine; but please try to arrange it yourself and let me (Rossie) or Cheryl know if you need help.

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Flickr group

If you would like to share your blocks on flickr, I recommend posting them to this group:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/quiltingbeeblocks/

That way they'll be seen by more people!  

The groups for individual bees don't seem to get much traffic, so we're not planning on setting one up.

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Blog button

As requested, here is a blog button

html code for above

<a href="http://midmodbee.blogspot.com/"><img alt="Mid Mod Quilt Bee" border="0" img="" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1276/4672802101_3d0bb05c58_b.jpg" width="200" /></a>


In Blogger, add these by going to the "layout" tab;   click "add gadget";choose "HTML/JavaScript" as the gadget type;  paste in code; save your changes!

To make the button bigger or smaller, change the "200" to a bigger or smaller number.

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Words of wisdom

Cheryl put this so well in her email that I asked her permission to post this for posterity:
"We have a phenomenally creative group of quilters, artists, authors, and designers. We are all fans of mid century modern design. We believe that we can come together to create some amazing quilts. These quilts will capture the spirit of the artists involved. They will also, hopefully, capture the essence of mid-century modern design.

"So, instead of sending out precise rules and pre-cut fabric, please share your inspiration and a pile of fabric. Let go and see what comes back to you. We can trust each other to produce quality blocks, so trust the process."

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Please post each block you make

When you post a block you made, please attach two labels: (1) your first name  (2) ______'s quilt <--- filling in the name of the person for whom the block is destined.

This will make it easier to search back through posts. 
I have added ALL of these labels to this post so that you can add them to future posts just by clicking on "show all"



and then select the relevant labels.

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Feel free to post about other mid-mod stuff here.
I'm loving the inspiration posts, and their comments. Keep them coming and please use the "inspiration" label! 

I have figured out how to get the byline up below the title of each post, hopefully this will help us know who is talking when. (I'll try to clean up the way it looks soon).

Also, if any members want me to add their email address to the list of those who get emailed each comment, shoot me an email.  (You can also subscribe to the comments by RSS, but I like the email method myself.)


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I'm beyond pumped to get started!
Thank you all!