The Quilts Unscripted Bee wrapped up our second year this past summer and are now well into our third!
Quick recap — Quilts Unscripted was started by Ellyn Zinsmeister and Sarah Goer in mid-2021. Current bee members are Ellyn, Sarah, E.A. Cox, Chris Davies, Emily Lang, Elizabeth Ray, Isabelle Selak, Carole Lyles Shaw, Charles Cameron, and me. We are primarily an improv-focused bee (hence the “unscripted” in our name), and use mainly solid fabrics. Each month, one person chooses a theme or prompt, and provides guidance for the color palette and size/shape of blocks if they have a specific requirement.
Here are the prompts from 2023, and the blocks I made for each one:
In January, Isabelle asked us to make grayscale blocks using architecture as inspiration. These two blocks were both based directly on photos of Houston-area buildings — here’s the inspiration for one and two. This was one of my personal favorite prompts this year.
In February, Sarah gave us the color palette you see above and asked us to use organic gentle curves, tiny pieced squares, and/or strips in our blocks. I liked using the improv curve method for the blue block.
Then in March, Emily asked us to make one larger block inspired by an image of a piece of pattern that she provided us. This turned out to be one of my favorite blocks I made for the bee this year!
For April, Ellyn really got us thinking outside the box (pun intended) by asking us to make two cereal box-inspired blocks. Mine were based on Chex and Oreo O’s! That Chex block is still bouncing around in my head and I think it could inspire a larger quilt. Ellyn finished her cereal quilt this fall and gave it a great grocery store photoshoot.
In May, Charles had us “choose your own adventure” by picking a book genre, 3 colors, and 2 types of blocks/units. I chose sci-fi, with a palette of light and dark purple plus dark pickle/olive, plus stripes and half rectangle triangles. This block really evoked Buzz Lightyear to me!
In June, Chris asked for earth-toned blocks inspired by ancient Pueblo pottery. I enjoyed perusing a lot of great examples of pottery and taking in the surprisingly modern-looking motifs!
For July, E.A. asked for two-color blocks for a pair of classroom quilts, one using solids and one using blenders. She finished one of the quilts last month!
By August, we had rolled into another year of the bee but with a different order, so it was Ellyn’s turn again! This time, she asked us to make a variety of small blocks with simple piecing in monochromatic orange, yellow, aqua, and blue, and has already finished her quilt top. I liked this prompt a lot, mainly because it was a busy time of year and I didn’t have to think too hard. Ha!
But then Sarah challenged me in September with her request for quilt blocks inspired by a vintage pillowcase with special meaning to her. The white and yellow block was pretty fun to put together and is another one I could see turning into a whole quilt.
In October, Isabelle sent each of us a different AI-generated image to use as inspiration. This one stumped me for a long while, and a busy fall meant that I kept procrastinating on it. But I finally got it done this week (major eek), and was happy with the result.
And finally, I provided the prompt for November! I used this image as my color palette and asked the group to take inspiration from vintage tile quilts. I’ll be working on the quilt, as well as the quilt from my August 2022 Quilts Unscripted prompt, in the coming year.
