One of the last activities for Modern Quilters Ireland is our Modern Irish Bee. This year, our group of 9 have been making big blocks for each other 18 ½" in size. There have been lots of half square triangle blocks which are fun to scale up to big sizes.
If you would like to find the instructions for any of these come visit our facebook group: Modern Irish Bee.
Suzanne gave us a free form option, to make a block with an Irish theme that she will put together for the festival of Quilts in Birmingham next year and she left the choice and content of the block up to us! Having had a conversation with Suzanne about books, and having seen the cutest paper pieced book block from Tall Tales on the Honey Pot Bee facebook group, I knew I wanted to use that in some way. After all one of the things Ireland is famous for is our writers like Yeats, Joyce and Beckett. So I though books would work quite well.
The other thing we are famous for is our wet weather! And with hurricane Ophelia just having passed through the weather is on the tip of everyones tongues. (We lost our satellite dish so very lucky that was the worst that happened! Watching the TV on the laptop for the moment!)
Almost every casual conversation on a normal day starts with chat about the weather too and the hundreds of ways to describe a rainy day:
bucketing down, pi**ing out of the heavens, lashing, soft, floggging it, spitting it, rotten, drowning out, fierce, pelting down, hammering down, torrential, weather for ducks, a day for the fire, no drying out today, wetting rain(?) and my favourite – someone left the tap on above in heaven.
With that in mind I decided to make weather themed books so I have a rainy winter, sunny summer, autumn leaves and the spring you might say is the bright green text border that ties it all together! Yes I might be taking a bit of artistic licence with it but isn't that half the fun!
The paper pieced book block is quite titchy so to make something suitable for an 18" block I made 3, trimmed to 7" x 4 ½" and surrounded them with white background fabric and a 1.5" green border! If you want to make something similar yourself, download the book pattern from Jodi's Craftsy shop here.
I think it's the perfect size for a cushion and would be great for a kids room for reading activities and I can imagine a pocket in the back for a book too! Might just have to make another one...
I love yiur concept of tall tales for Suzanne's quilt . It has been interesting watching this year's bee . It seems to have been the year if the big star . But then you are all big stars !
ReplyDeleteThanks a million Helen, very kind of you to say! Everyone has done a brilliant job of re-sizing the blocks to 18" and they have been great fun to make.
DeleteI don't think that is taking artistic license at all; excellent execution and a lot of meaning in that block. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Yvonne. It's going to be an interesting looking quilt as some have gone for traditional motifs like the harp and others green, white and orange from the flag so eager to see how it all comes together!
DeleteI am a lover of big blocks because they give you lots of room to play with quilting. I think the theme for your book block is quite clever. And I have to remember some of those phrases to say it's raining :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Tish, I'm sure there are a lot more ways to talk about the rain but those were the ones I could think of off the top of my head! It's pouring today too so happy to be inside with a cuppa looking out the window!
DeleteExcellent block, both in thought process and final result.
ReplyDeleteThanks a million Cheryl!
DeleteYour book block is so very cute! Sorry for you satellite dish, but glad to hear you're fine otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThere were quite a few trees down but we were lucky really - Storm Darwin from 4 years ago hit Limerick harder but Ophelia was definitely more eerie. The 21 degree weather before hand was weird and the quietness of the streets was like Christmas Day!
DeleteThose are great blocks. Glad you survived the hurricane.
ReplyDeleteThanks a million Anja! We had the usual winter storms straight after, this one called Brian and it seemed windier than the huricane - weather is weird!
DeleteBrilliant blocks for the theme Ruth, it will be interesting seeing how the quilt comes together.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the paper today there are lots more storms to come this winter, definitely time to stay indoors and quilt then :)
We had damage to our side gate in Storm Brian and the Shannon flooded so it does look like we are in for a bit of a battering this winter! I like your idea of quilting through it all!
ReplyDelete