Unscripted Bee Blocks

gosh, i'm awfully behind with posting!

the majority of these blocks were made or completed in august, after the map was finished. i'd gotten a bit behind for july blocks, but in addition to that, several folks from the Unscripted Bee sent out their fabric at the same time, so i had a nice little stack of projects waiting for me.



Cynthia's block was finished it earlier in the summer, but of course, i haven't blogged it yet.

Cynthia's a huge fan of Paris (she's even designed fabric inspired by it!), so she asked us to use Elizabeth Hartman's Mod Mosaic tutorial to make blocks that looked like a map of Paris, with the white strips standing in as "streets", jutting out in all directions. She'd been collecting Paris themed fabric for awhile, so she sent us all some scraps of it, along with coordinating prints.



aren't the fabrics she chose fun? i LOVE the buttons piece on the upper right! my block ended up fairly straight, without many angles in it - so i guess it doesn't look that much like a map of Paris, the streets there look like a nightmare! unsurprisingly, i was worried about running out of fabric, and i didn't want to waste fabric by cutting it wonky.

Cynthia also asked us to make a small improv block for the back of her quilt, so i used my last little pieces for the following -



see that eensy bit of white in the top right corner? that was ALL i had left!



Jody's block was a fairly simple improv block, perfect for getting back into the swing of things after the map quilt! Jody sent out a selection of solids in blues, greens, greys and white, and asked us to make a block using Bumble Beans Inc (Victoria Findlay Wolfe)'s "Waverunner Quilt" tutorial.



as usual, i ran out of fabric. i was supposed to make a block 10"x20", and i ALMOST made it! i think it ended up being 19" long or so. i really really love how the block turned out, and i think it's going to be a stunning quilt, but i totally didn't find it as easy as the tutorial led me to believe!

the tutorial tells you to cut your strips with wavy edges, then line them up to sew them regardless of matching curves. you're supposed to be able to press them flat if you use steam. i don't know if my curves weren't slight enough or what, but there were several spots where it didn't matter how much i steamed the block, it just wasn't going to flatten. i worked it out by going back in and sewing along the fold line, where the fabric wanted the seam to be, so it wasn't a big deal, but it was interesting. i also really love the little bits of scraps that i used to bring the block closer to size, similar to what the original quilt uses.



and finally, Nicole's blocks! i started these so long ago... i ran out of background fabric for these, and then i totally lost steam while waiting for more to arrive. i eventually finished up the words, but i was so stalled on the additional improv blocks to go along with them, it took me forever to get everything finished up and sent out.

Nicole asked everyone to make a block with their favourite word in it. she sent us all different bundles of fabric, but we all had the same background fabric, and a small piece of the Kaffe Fassett fabric that inspired her overall colour scheme for the quilt. she told us to make the blocks any size we wanted, but to please include the Kaffe Fassett fabric in our word somewhere.

i was super excited about her blocks, because i'd been doing a lot of pieced lettering at the time (no, of course i haven't blogged that yet...). i gave Nicole a list of favourite words, including some 20s slang that i adore, and she chose the word kerfuffle.

i started working on the block, but fairly early on i realized that a) i didn't like the K that i'd made, especially with the other letters, and b) the orange fabrics weren't melding with the pinks and creams very well, and since i was using one print per letter, it was VERY obvious!

so then that led to me making two word blocks....






(final size of the block - 38" x 10.5")


and then in the orange fabrics,


(final size of the block - 21" x 9")

it actually worked out perfectly, because we've been using the word "keen" a lot in the bee - some members of the bee are total keeners, getting their blocks done super quick!

and as for the improv blocks that messed me up - i made three, one of which i turned into a signature block. i love the fabric combination on the largest block, but i like the technique i used on the orange one, it was fun to do. i also had the improv block that Lysa made, because she didn't like how it turned out, but i wasn't inspired by it either. i ended up sending it to Nicole as-is, i'm sorry Lysa!




and that is the end of the Unscripted Bee blocks!


except, of course, my blocks.... which is a whole other post!