Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Traveling Quilt Bee: The Beginning

When I saw that sign ups were open for the Traveling Quilt Bee on Instagram, I was very intrigued and signed up. I have seen a number of other quilters participate in these sorts of bees, but this one caught my eye because the quilt isn't necessarily going to be a medallion quilt -- the next quilters in the chain won't add to all four sides, just one or two!

Here's my color inspiration mosaic:


The floral print in the upper lefthand corner is a large scale fabric that I bought eight yards of about a year ago at one of the local quilt shops with the intent to use it as a backing. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to use it so I built my color palette around it, minus the olive green.

Here's my design mosaic:


The Moda Building blocks quilt in the bottom left is probably closest to my "vision" and will likely be the easiest to achieve in this style of bee. The main focus is classic blocks in various sizes without any sashing or borders.

This weekend I made my starting block! I used Judy Martin's Star Cluster block, but adjusted it to make a 20" finished block.


I used all small scale prints and tonals as my focus fabrics and Kona white as my background. We also are including a journal with our quilts as it travels along so that our bee mates can add notes about what they did! I wrote in a lot of details about what I am looking for, as well as included the size of my block and where it came from, then recommended some block sizes for going forward.

This should be a fun adventure for the rest of the year! I am very excited to get my first quilt to work on at the end of this month!

Sharing at Fabric Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, and Sew Cute Tuesday!

10 comments:

  1. Hi Alison, I just saw your block in a link-up and it caught my eye because I once made a whole quilt of these stars and it was brainteaser))
    I love how the yellow star in your block shines next to the contrasting darker ones. Hope you enjoy your bee and like what you get back))
    If you'd like to check my version please drop by to the gallery http://lenapugacheva.blogspot.ie/p/gallery.html

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  2. I'm in the traveling quilt bee as well and it looks like it is going to be a lot of fun seeing how these quilts evolve. I'm kinda stumped on the journal to go with my quilt but I have written a few notes in there but not totally happy with that part yet.

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  3. This is going to be a lot of fun to watch grow over the year. I hope it turns out beautifully for you!

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  4. This is a fascinating concept and I am looking forward to reading more about it.

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  5. Love that backing fabric! Your color selection compliment it so well. I've always avoided traveling bees because they intimidate me on what to do, but not having the pressure of doing all four sides seems like it's more doable.

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  6. This Traveling Bee sounds like loads of fun! And I love your block! I can't wait to see the finish...it is an intriguing idea.

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  7. Such a lovely colour palette you've got here. I will watch with interest because I have literally just signed up for a UK version! Very exciting.

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  8. This sounds like fun! Your design mosaic is very exciting...and i love your block.

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  9. Looks like a lot of fun. Hope to see all your contributions on the blog.

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  10. Love to see more. I love Kona fabrics. I'm following you now. I came from Sew Cute Tuesday. I linked too. I hope you'll come over and visit me!

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