Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Buzzing Bees

This year our Guild has decided to put the emphasis on getting to know each other.  Several initiatives have been put together, one of them being the Bee groups, either Improv Bees and Queen Bee.

Are you familiar with the concept of Quilting Bee?  Initially, it was a social gathering amongst quilters to make a quilt faster, each members would sew a block or more, and all together they will work on the top and eventually quilting it.  Things have evolved, but the goal stays the same.  If you want to find out more, go and check this article on Craftsy.

A few months have passed and we have started to see some interesting blocks popping up on social media or at Show’n’Tell at our meetings.  The Blue and Green Hives, and the Queen Bee, with 12 members each, and work on a monthly schedule.  Whereas the Yellow hive has 2 Queens and produces 2 blocks every other month.

So far we had some interesting prompt leading to even more interesting blocks.

Here are Sarah and Ashley blocks from the first round.  Their respective prompts can be found here and here 


The second month of the Improv Bee brought some bright blocks for Aradria.

If Improv is out of your comfort zone, don’t feel intimidated.  Start with small steps: do not use a ruler or a rotary cutter, go for solid or low volume fabric.  You can also get inspiration and tips from Sherry Lynwood book (The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters - it is in our library!)

The Queen Bee, which work on a set block requested by the Queen bee each month, had some super nice results too.

Here is an article about Quilting Bee Etiquette.  My take on this, like in most life situation, communication is key.  To help with communication, Ashley recommends to create and share a Pinterest board.

As the months are going by and new prompts and blocks will be shared, I hope you will be inspired to join a Quilting bee.

 Still in need of inspiration?  Here where to find more:



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