NYC Metro Modern Quilters Guild: NYC Mod Bee Round 3

Showing posts with label NYC Mod Bee Round 3. Show all posts

Saturday, April 19, 2014

A look back....

I absolutely LOVE being in this quilting bee. It's amazing to have the opportunity to connect with such talented and creative quilters. Here's a look back at this past year's blocks:

May 2013 through October 2013

November 2013 through April 2014

Dutch Rose

These are the blocks from my queen month. I really like the look of the vintage sheets.

I'm looking forward to putting these incredible blocks together soon.

If you would like to see more, I have pictures of every block I've made for this bee (going back to the beginning) in this album.

Now, I'm looking forward to the next year!

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Scrappy Nine Patches for Kim

Kim is this month's QB and handed out her packages yesterday at the meeting! Sewed mine up today...

I love how this block came out! Only one problem though... Kim's instructions said the block should finish at 12 1/2", but mine came out 12 1/8". I used my 1/4" foot but I was switching from another foot when I started this block, and I'm thinking maybe my needle position wasn't exactly where it needs to be. I measured my seams and many of them appear to be just a HAIR over 1/4". I guess with this many seams in the block, a hair could make that much of a difference.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!! Kim, I can re-do it if you send more of the red... and maybe you can throw this one on the back? ;) Unless you had planned to trim all after receiving :/ Doubt it.

I will email you now.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Fast Blocks

We've been hit with ice, snow, and bitterly cold temperatures. There was no mail delivery yesterday (I guess the mail lady couldn't get her delivery truck to start), but I got Chris's fabric in the mail today. Within about an hour or so, I had the blocks cut, sewn, pressed, and ready to mail.

There are so many possibilities of what to do with these blocks. The hardest part was NOT trimming.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Caught Up.....for now

Every month, it's so fun to see what each queen has chosen for the bee members to make. A lot of times, it's blocks that I have never seen before, and I imagine how fantastic they will look with all the other blocks in the finished quilt.

I spent some of Thanksgiving break pressing HSTs and got blocks on the design wall from the Dutch Rose block made from vintage sheets. Now, I'm going to make the most of this icy, snowy weather by working out sashing and borders on my bee quilt.

Fractured Triangle for Andrea

Story of You for Maria

LIVE for Rossanna

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Mod Bee 3 October Block for Maria - "Story of You"

I was terrified when I got Maria's package in the mail. I've never sewn curves, and never planned to. When I saw her at Quilters Take Manhattan I was like "I got your envelope... you want me to sew WHAT?!?!?".

Anyway, my initial fear quickly diminished after I read (and re-read) QB's clear instructions and visited the resources she provided. She even made fancy templates for us!

Maria asked that we use fabrics that represent us in some way. I love black & white and can't resist a nice graphic b&w print. But I also love color and the way a hint of color looks when you introduce it to an overwhelmingly b&w scheme. Also pink. And pandas. Who can resist pandas?

Will mail this week. Hope you like it Maria!

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Mod Bee 3 June Block for Kimberly - Dutch Rose

I am relieved to see I was not the only one who struggled with this block. I almost had to ask for replacement fabric from the QB too, and since they're vintage sheets I didn't even know if it was possible! Luckily my cutting errors were salvageable... at first I cut the wrong print for the center, but then luckily it turned out that I had to cut that fabric to the same size as the center piece anyway. BIG "phew" moment there.
Then as I was squaring up a green 5" piece to cut 2 1/2" squares from (to make the HSTs), I accidentally cut one side to 4 3/4"... d'oh!! I was able to fudge the 4 less-than-perfect HSTs in the block, and hopefully Kim will be able to fudge the 4 corresponding mini ones for her sawtooth border. ;)

I couldn't find a good spot in my apartment to photograph this but liked how it looked in the window!

Here's a "normal" picture of it...

Leftover mini-HSTs for sawtooth border as requested

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Mod Bee 3 - May Block for E

Here is my May block for E. She requested a modern Sunbonnet Sue. Never appliqued before so was a little apprehensive... but after watching a couple tutorials on youtube things fell into place. Good excuse to break out the MistyFuse I scored at Quilters Take Manhattan last year!

I came across The Sun Sets on Sunbonnet Sue while browsing around for inspiration (randomly found it here in a book called Feminist messages: coding in women's folk culture). I was really tickled by the whole thing and showed the excerpt & subversive quilt to my boyfriend. We started bouncing ideas around for what my block should be. He said that Sue looked like Kenny from South Park in that quilt. Then he mentioned Darth Vader and I ran with it.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Dutch Rose for June

I went back and forth on what fabrics to use for this. After organizing my sewing area recently, I have been on a self-imposed “fabric diet”. With shopping not an option, I went to my stash. I think every quilter has some fabrics that they hoard, covet, pet, and can’t imagine cutting. The fabrics that I have included this month are decades old and have stood the test of time – vintage sheets. Some of the fabrics are ‘brand new’, never used, and were still in the package, while others are super soft and used. Almost all the fabrics are from a vintage sheet fat quarter swap earlier this year. I think this is the perfect way to show how well these fabrics all work together.

Here is the pattern/tutorial for a Dutch Rose block we will be making:

Request:

If you would send also send me the pieced “bonus” blocks, I would really appreciate it. Don’t worry about pressing them open…or even cutting them apart, if you string piece. I want to use them to make a sawtooth border around the entire quilt. Here is my pile of string-pieced HST “bonus” blocks.

Thanks!!

Friday, May 17, 2013

Girl on Fire

This block was quite a challenge for me. I really struggled with finding inspiration. I looked through Google images, Pinterest, and Etsy only to find thousands of images of traditional Sunbonnet Sue. I wanted to make something original yet recognizable My inspiration was Katniss from The Hunger Games. I hope my translation works and that E likes it. I used a blanket stitch around all the raw edges and thread-painted the bow and arrow.

Here's my sketch/pattern (in reverse):

Sunday, April 21, 2013

The Original Mod Bee has 5 slots open

Hello my mod folks

The torch is temporarily being passed to myself "encyclopedia" and Brian.

We have 5 slots that need to be filled. The round begins in May. Fortunately, that slot is filled so we will move right into the next round....

If you are interested please send me an email "E at cocktailsandthread dot com".

It is a great group, and if you are interested in joining in... Let me know.

I will post when the slots are complete

Thanks look forward to hearing from you.

E.