I joined an online quilting bee last month. What’s an online quilting bee, you ask. Back in the days of yore, ladies (bc that’s who quilted back then) would gather and work on a quilt together. It was a practical and social gathering - many ladies working on one quilt sped along its production, and simultaneously allowed for them to have some fun social time together. Fast forward to 2010, you don’t need to gather in your local church basement to be a part of a bee - the internets changes things!
I found the Quilting Bee Blocks flickr group through a quick internet search, and “met” the other 11 members of my group via the page where people say: “Ooh! Me, please, I want in!” We quickly formed our little group, Sew Bee It, and decided that we would try to go for a fresh, modern look as a unifying theme. Each person gets a month during which they send out little packets of fabric to the other 11 people, along with some guidelines on what you’d like made. At the end of the month, you have a bunch of finished blocks sent back to you, very possibly with each one different than the next since 11 different quilters created them. Hey presto, insta-quilt top.
