House or Power Plant?

Here you go Debbie. I realized after I complete it that it is probably a bit too blocky for you. I'm sorry about that. I reread the directions after I finished. But there is a definitive influence from your inspiration photos. That counts for something!

It's in the mail, so don't lose it among the Christmas cards!

Chevron/Heart

The best part of the online quilt bee is working outside of your comfort zone. Making a block in these colours is definitely outside my comfort zone, as are all those solids.

This is Amanda's block. If you turn it upside down it vaguely resembles a heart. That is how I feel about this block. The size, the sparseness, the challenge in making it - all make me love it. I'm still not digging the colour. Then again, it isn't mine, so that's okay.

I hope Amanda hearts it too.

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!

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!!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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