During the early days of the pandemic, I signed up to participate in a bee with some of my guild members. This was my first time taking part in a bee like this, where each member requested a certain type of block or patchwork, and the other members of the group provided what they asked. I really enjoyed making the blocks for the other members and felt inspired by their prompts. When it came to my turn to request blocks from other bee members, I struggled to come up with a cool prompt. I blame covid brain for my lack of creativity in this instance (not that I actually had covid, just that the early period of the pandemic made my brain feel so weird and mushy).

I had a pad of pineapple block foundation papers in my studio, a freebie from QuiltCon many years ago. I have always loved this quilt by Tricia Royal, so I asked her if she would be okay with me using it as the template for my bee quilt. She said go for it, so I sent a couple foundation papers to my bee members. I decided I wanted to add a border that would contrast with the black & white. My first idea was to try purple blocks as a juxtaposition, since I had a lot of purple in my stash that wasn’t getting used much. I wasn’t feeling that combination, so those purple blocks turned into their own quilt (see below). Next I tried to yellow blocks for my border and I was happy with that outcome. It wasn’t my first time using yellow in this way; this quilt from 2016 definitely influenced my design choice here. I’m happy with this bee quilt even though I couldn’t come up with a super unique prompt for my bee members. I love having an homage to Tricia’s work of my own.

This quilt measures 71”x83” and was quilted for me by Sarah Evans.

And here is the quilt that came from the purple blocks I made. I paired purple with chambray and navy and tried to focus on contrast in my composition. Honestly I never thought I’d make or love a mostly purple quilt but here we are. It’s a nice nap size quilt and I absolutely adore the quilting done by Sarah Evans on it (a fun panto by Longarm League called Thread Garden). Measures 59”x70”. Photos are by Mitch Hopper (except the one of Tricia’s quilt).