Modern InstaBee

Are you on Instagram? I have been for a few months now, and I'm having so much fun swapping photos with other quilters all over the world! Sometime during February I saw photos floating around asking for volunteers to participate in virtual quilting "bees" based on this book - Modern Bee: 13 Quilts to Make With Friends by Lindsay Conner. Lindsay herself is organizing this effort and there are now over 200 people grouped into 17 "hives" of 12 members! Each month one of the 12 members gets to be the "Queen Bee" and chose the quilt block and colors/fabrics she would like the other 11 members to make for her.

My group - Hive 15 - just started sewing this month, and we are making these "Ziggy Stardust" blocks for Karen in California. She asked for Kona White or Snow fabrics for the background and Denyse Schmidt prints for the pinwheel stars.

There is a fair amount of background fabric in these blocks, so I grabbed my trusty graph paper (BTW it's completely okay to start drawing something like this at the time of day when you should be cooking dinner because it's graph paper and hey, that makes it sort of like a "work thing" you need to finish before cooking can begin) and set to figuring the least amount of yardage I needed for the background pieces for two blocks and the most efficient way to cut the pieces. 1/3 yard is the magic number in case you were wondering.

The blocks finish at 12", but the segments of those stars are tiny! 1" finished for each of those HSTs!

I chose a couple of blue and orange DS prints that felt like spring to me, because even though it is the first day of spring, here in northern Illinois we still have snow on the ground. My two star blocks - so much cuteness in such a teeny little package!

After finishing the stars the rest of the block was easy-peasy. I added the larger background pieces and a 1" finished strip of the print to complete them.

The group decided that we would each also make a small signature block that can be put on the back of the quilt, so I included a bit of my two print fabrics in this 3" finished block. Tomorrow I'm mailing the two 12" blocks and my signature block to sunny California!

Next month in Hive 15 we are making a block called "Ninja Star" - that's quite a name, huh? My month to be Queen Bee is November, and I haven't yet chosen a block or colors and fabrics. Good thing I have a few months to decide!

Have you ever participated in a virtual sewing bee group?