That’s right, this is me breaking out my Lion King sound track circa 1994 and singing, “I just can’t wait to be QUEEN.” This is it. The first month of the ScrapBeeLicious Quilting Bee and I know you’re all on the edge of your seats wondering what block we’re going to kick off with.
(How adorable is our blog button made by the wonderful and talented Stephanie over at Quarter Incher?!)
Well, I’m here to tell you – picking a block is plum hard. Hard, I tell you! I went through plenty of choices, researched and researched, until finally I had to tell myself, “enough is enough.” One thing that helped was asking: “Do I know exactly how I would want this quilt to look?” Then it’s not a Bee quilt. I really wanted to do something that I thought would look beautiful as a scrap quilt. That helped to narrow down block choices. So I had it down to 10 blocks. haha. I contemplated the X-Plus quilt, the scrappy trip along, the spiderweb block, arkansas crossroads block, flying geese remix, etc. Then, there was also a quilt I have been fascinated with since a fellow Bee member made it this spring: Bookworms by Stephanie over @ Simple Sewendipity! When I was feverishly looking through my Pinterest page of quilts, I saw another converging corners quilt similar to hers, and I just knew this would be my Bee Quilt.
Check out this Converging Corners quilt by Ashley @ Film in the Fridge
photo credit: Ashley @ Film in the Fridge
You’ll notice that Ashley’s is slightly different than Stephanie’s, in that hers has center squares that are white. Also, hers is not separated by color order or into a specific color scheme. I am obsessed with the Converging Corners block and luckily Ashley has a wonderful Converging Corners Tutorial over at Film in the Fridge which made my job as Queen even easier. Which, let’s be serious, I’m supposed to be sitting here drinking Tea this month, right?! Amen. I just think this block looks divine all scrappy (even though I know this one is all one line of fabric. This girl can spot Denyse Schmidt from miles away… is anyone surprised that my inspiration quilt is made from Denyse Schmidt fabric? I think I need rehab.)
So, now let’s talk details:
Bee members, oh wonderful Bee members. While the tutorial says to start with a center square of patterned fabric – I want a white center square – i.e. the quilt above. White. Center. Square.
For the white center square – please vary the dimensions in your two blocks so that they measure somewhere in the neighborhood of 7″ to 9.5″ square before you start adding the color corners. Like in the tutorial, this doesn’t have to be precise, to add interest and dimension to the final quilt. For example, you could do one with a center white square of 7 inches, and your second block with a center square of 8.5 inches. That way I will have a large variety of blocks for the final quilt.
Background fabric: Kona White please! (If you don’t have access to Kona White at a LQS, let me know – I’ll be happy to mail you some!)
Final Block Size: Please square the blocks to 12.5 inches
Now, color scheme. Because I love color. No, I really, really, really love color.
Yeah, I didn’t think you believed me, I REALLY love color.
Now that we have that covered, the color scheme is more of a color vomit. But, let’s get something out-of-the-way. I’m not really feeling low-volume for this. The white will be plenty low-volume for me. It’s ok, I’m allowed to pull a diva moment. I’m Queen. Sing it: “No one saying do this… no one saying be there… no one saying stop that…. no one saying low volume…” oh, that’s not how the song went? Whoops. It did say: “Free to do it all my way!”
Since color vomit isn’t really a color scheme, or really appropriate, I thought I’d attach some color inspiration photos. I love vibrant colors. Rich, saturated, bold, jewel colors.
Or this quilt block:
I just love all the saturated colors – but, please don’t feel the need to separate colors into color order, or even use all of the colors in the rainbow. I’m sure they’ll all be represented once all the blocks are received!
Oh, and just as a heads up, I love fuchsia.. Holla ‘atcha girl. (By the way, I just had to goggle how to spell Fuchsia, my favorite color. Fail.)
In essence, though, I love everything I’ve seen each of you make and I promise you that getting these blocks in the mail, with all the scrappy goodness, is going to fill my heart with so much joy that I won’t even notice if you throw in some low-volume or even brown.
So, for the next month, some amazing quilters and friends are going to be sending me two converging corners blocks and it’s going to be Christmas early for me. I hope my husband is ready to open the mail and ohhhhh and ahhhhh with me this month!
I can’t wait to see what these ladies make!
Let the ScrapBeeLicious-ness begin!
I just love how her fabrics play together. I wanted to make one side of the feather as a whole print, because those are my favorite blocks in the quilt from the pattern.
Wasn't Quilt in a Day 