229. Beach Umbrellas

 In 2014, when it was my month to be in charge of the Mid Century Modern bee group, I chose the spiderweb block.  Rene' had chosen spiderweb blocks in a previous month and I really loved the look of the blocks. I wanted the center to be low volume and all the strings to be solid. 

The blocks arrived and after admiring them, they were put in a drawer. Since 2022 is the year I vowed to finished all the old bee block exchanges, this was the first set of blocks I pulled out. 

I dumped my bin of solid scraps and began cutting strings. 

 We had originally used a template from Heather of Heather a la Mode. It was kind of a weird size, maybe because she wanted to make sure the template would fit on a sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" paper. 

The first problem I ran into was that I needed to make more blocks. And the template was no longer available. I tried to draft my own on graph paper and it probably would have been sufficient. But Elizabeth of opquilt.com came to the rescue and drafted a professional one for me. 

That solved the problem of completing the blocks for the main body of the quilt, but I had always had the idea in my head of extending a few blocks out into a border. At first I tried using the same bright colors, but then I had the idea of using a very light print for the border and making the completion blocks in the border out of pastels, to give the impression that something white had been placed over the brighter blocks, giving them the illusion of being lighter.  I completed one block on each side of the quilt and I'm so happy with the subtle results. 

I had signature blocks for the backing, and then had the idea of making a dark, medium and light block just to see what they looked like. I'm also really happy with the results. I think I was just having a good time making the spiderweb blocks. :)

At first I was sure I would use that print that is above and below the pieced blocks as the binding. After all, it had all the fun colors that were in the blocks.  But it was way too bright against the faded blocks in the border.

I opted for this more subtle stripe and that turned out to be a better choice.

It was beautifully quilted by Darby Myers.

I took the quilt to our son's house for a few photos. Of course I chose the wrong time of day. Lots of bright sun and shadows. But this was the only beach umbrella I could locate on short notice. Ha.

The colors of the climbing structure in the background are fun.

Quilt: Beach Umbrellas

Blocks from members of the Mid Century Modern bee from 2014

Pieced and completed in 2022 by Cindy Wiens

Quilted by: Darby Myers

Size: 56" x 68"