Sewn Together August Blocks

Flaun's blocks for this month in the Sewn Together Bee are finally finished and on their way home! Woo Hoo! I actually had a little bit of time to get a little sewing done this weekend, in between brunch and concerts (Billy Idol rocks!) and barbecues with friends. As you may have heard mention before, Flaun gave us creative license with our blocks this month - with only a few parameters that I wrote about here. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun I had with her blocks this month. It was creatively liberating! I was so excited about her blocks that I actually made three for her. I know, I went a little crazy, but what's a girl to do with leftover fabric but sew!

The first block I made for her was very symmetrical and linear. I knew I wanted to make her a rectangle block because I have been inspired lately by some rectangular blocks I've seen other people making. I like clean lines and the modern feel a rectangle evokes. So first I sketched out a prototype. It was actually the first time I sketched before quilting. I suppose that's because I am a new quilter and I was designing something on my own and I found that I really enjoyed the process so now I have graph paper and colored pencils on my shopping list! Initially I wanted the dark brown solid to be thicker and more prominent but I didn't have enough to make the border as meaty as I wanted so I ended up with this...

I was really happy with how the first block turned out but I knew that I wanted to give her something a little different for my second block. I like circles and I know that Flaun does too, so I combined straight, clean lines with small circles that I hand stitched onto the block, creating almost a polka dot effect. I was initially going to do larger circles but I had fabric constraints. I actually used a Danish Kroner that I had from my recent trip to Denmark to trace the circles onto the fabric and then I cut them by hand.

Finally, with fabric supplies running low, save the cool atomic blue, I came up with her final block. Last month was mine in our bee and Flaun had commented on how much she liked the circles and mused over the idea of concentric, overlapping circles and how cool that might be, so that's what I tried to give her. I knew that if I placed the atomic blue over the atomic blue it would get lost so I made that circle smaller than the dotted yellow and the solid blue and kept it inside the other two circles. I did have a small piece of the solid brown fabric left and I considered adding a small "polka dot" sized brown circle but in the end I liked the simplicity of the three circles. These were big enough for me to machine sew onto the background fabric. I did consider cutting the background fabric into a circle as well, but I thought that would be too difficult for her to incorporate into her finished quilt.

Flaun is a very brave woman for allowing our creativity to run wild like this and I thank her for it! I can't wait to see how the finished masterpiece comes together!