When Saija send out her email with the theme for her blocks, I was excited. The Birch Forest “Koivikko” idea spoke to me and I had ideas early on. I picked some inspiration pictures and started pulling fabric, all in the beginning of the quarter and then the sewing somehow stopped.
Thankfully this is a very understanding bee group and I am now working really hard on catching up. Another set of blocks for Q2 is still open and then the new ones for Q3. But this theme is now finally finished, so let me tell you a bit about my blocks.
The first idea I had, seems to be a very common one: Making birch stems and some green background in whatever way feels right to you. We have quite some of those in our Instagram hashtag #improvbee; all individual ones and very nice.
These are the inspiration pictures I picked and I even started sewing some rough HSTs…
When I got back on track, I first finished the birch stems. When I looked at the #2 inspiration I saw trapezoid shapes. So I put two of my triangles together in a wonky trapezoid fashion. Then I cut those units in wonky ways to make slices for my birch stems. I used three colors for the “spots” and two whites to make up for all the different colors in nature.
For the leaves I picked five different greens. I don’t have many greens in my stash and those were the ones that fit best with my idea of birches :) I had planned to make more triangles and sew the wonky background out of those, but when I was done with the stems, they said: Cut more slices! So I did.
The light corners of the picture are just of the tape holding the block up for a picture. The green strips are fully green.
For my second block I wanted to somehow translate a childhood memory. When I was about 12 or so, we lived in a top level apartment with a sloped roof and such “walls”. In front of the house was a birch and a lot of its small seed leaves fluttered through my slanted skylight. They made a huge mess of the floor…
So my second block had to include those seeds. These are the inspiration pictures I found:
I used the same green fabrics for the leaves. The seeds read a yellow brown/ ocher to me but that color was not on the menu so I picked the most yellowish green I have for the seeds. I just had scraps of that but thankfully it was enough.
Best wishes
xo Melanie
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Let’s Bee Social #185 @ Sew Fresh Quilts
Finish it up Friday! @ Crazy Mom Quilts
I really love these blocks — so imaginative and beautiful! It will be interesting to see how they go with the other bee blocks.
Love the inspiration AND what you’ve done here!
It’s so nice that your blocks have a story and birches mean a lot for you! They are great and very neat. I want to use the small extra block too. My blocks are on the way for you!
They look amazing and I love that both blocks have such a story behind them!
Both blocks turned out great and it was a fun little personal story with the second one. I love those little hanging pods on bircht trees… mess or not ; ) I’ve seen the other blocks in the improv bee and think it will be a fun finish.