Radiate

Our latest Bee Sewcial prompt is 'Radiate.' M-R/@quiltmatters asked for wedge-shaped block(s) - one or more - exploring what we hope to radiate this year. My initial thought was 'encouragement,' and I mulled that over for a while, finally asking hubby, "what does encouragement LOOK like?" Our conversation wound around to 'standing together,' and that is what I tried to portray in my block via the use of improv stripes.

What a fun palette M-R chose - yellows, oranges, reds, & purples. I love then together, don't you? Obviously I went with one wedge, just for the challenge, and I gotta say it was kinda tricky! Marci had figured out if we did one block, according to M-R's request of 1-3" wide on one end, 5-7" on the other, it would be about 60" long. That's way bigger than my cutting mat, so I finally taped an approximate shape on the floor, and that worked pretty well!

I actually made striped segments one by one, auditioning their composition and placement, tweaking, then finally roughly cutting to size and filling in as I went. Then once it was all pieced and fit 'neatly' between the tape, I laid my long ruler down and marked where to cut. Then it was easy to take to my cutting board and trim it up. Kinda crazy, but it worked.

Even with better lighting, it was difficult to photograph these colors, but here's one more try so you can see a bit of the detail pieced into the block before I mail it off to M-R. Fun times though!