I spent a wonderful Sunday at the SA Quilters Modern Mix sew day doing a fun group project!
I was in a group of 8 people and we each brought a tub of ‘core’ solid fabrics as well as one feature fabric. (there was another group of 8 participating as well)
These were my colours…. mostly sea glass blues and greens, with just one pinky/purple in there (which I did kinda regret later on!!)
My feature fabric was Tula Pink’s lady bugs.
First up we each made a block using our core fabrics and our feature fabric. No size restriction, but it was suggested that smaller was better. We had 30 minutes to make our block. This is mine
I didn’t think too much about it, just did some crumb style quilting around a bit of my feature fabric.
Then I bundled my block and my core colours into a tub and handed them to the next person!
And I got to work on the tub that had just arrived on my table! This had a long block of triangles, so I did some triangles too, just in a different direction with my feature fabric in there too!
We were given 15 minutes when we first got the tub of fabric and block to think about what we wanted to do, then 30 minutes to actually do it! Time FLEW!
Time for block 3! This one I just put one teeny tiny ladybug in a ‘window’ on this one. It made me laugh!
As these are lots of different colours across the Tula Pink ladybugs, I tried to pick colours that suited their fabrics and block.
Block 4 was VERY colourful! I tried to put some strips along the bottom to ‘calm it down a bit’…. but not sure that worked!!
Block 5 was when I realised what happens when you make your first block a larger one…. the blocks get very large very quickly! I used up a few little scrap bits that previous people had made but not used, to try and give a bit of cohesion to the bottom strips I added.
Block 6 was also using similar colours to me (without any pinky/purple!) and it looked so good!
I added some strips of feature fabric in the middle of some HSTs to the bottom!
Block 7 and by now we were being given 45 minutes to add our block, as they were getting larger and larger!
I loved the colourful Alison Glass blocks down the bottom the previous person had added in, so I sort of echoed that with my small ladybugs at the top. Probably should have been a bit more ‘improv’ to mine though!!
Block 8 and wow we were all getting tired by this point… it was about 5pm and we had been sewing all day!
This one I didn’t feel needed very much at all, so I added the orange and pink strips to the right….. and one teeny tiny appliqued ladybug crawling up the wall!
Finally we got to see our own blocks and I was stunned to see so many wonderful things added to my original block!
Though, I do wish I hadn’t popped that pink into the core fabrics. Oh well, we live and learn these things!
Now I will be adding a bit more to it…. adding a bit more of some of the people’s feature fabrics ( I went around asking for a little bit of it). Then it will be quilting, binding (I might try facing it!?) and then all of them might be entered into the Festival of Quilts in South Australia in 2026!
Here is what all of the blocks ended up looking like all laid out on the floor!
Such a wonderful day and having 30 minutes to make a block and add it to the rest made us all get on with it!
Am thinking I will need to organise one of these at the Quilt Barn one day!
