Saturday 23 June 2012

Block Party Who?

Desi Quilters is launching its first Bee today, called...BEE DESI. The updates will be shared on the Bee Desi page. Thanks to the internet, there is now a lot of interest in quilting from total newbies as well as those from related crafts. And since terms like block party, bee, etc are used interchangeably, many are left clueless and too intimidated to join these totally fun activities.

Well, a bee (or a block party) is nothing but a group of quilters who decide to get together and sew. In those days women, usually friends, neighbours and community folk, used to take turns at hosting these bees. Everybody would gather at the queenbee/queenmum's house and over food, conversation and some bonding, make her a block or work on her quilt. So something that would've taken weeks or months to complete would be done over a sitting or two. Their stories and friendships were quilted right INTO the quilts.

Of course, bees evolved and kept pace with the virtual world. One look at Flickr is all it takes to be awestruck at the number of virtual bees and the wide array of themes/topics/varieties doing the rounds. Bee Desi is starting off with a very simple format. 12 bee members, each chooses a month, decides if the other 11 are to make her blocks from their own stash or from fabric sent by her, settles on her quilt pattern and sends out instructions (and maybe fabric). The others have a month to make the blocks as per the instructions and mail them back to the queenbee. At the end of 12 months, each bee member has 12 blocks to put together in a very special quilt for herself. Now if THAT doesn't tempt you to start, pray tell me what will? :-).

With more members wanting to join the Bee, a second one will be started a little later and will run simultaneously. That will probably have a theme, so watch this space for updates.

BEE HAPPY ! BEE DESI !!

8 comments:

  1. BEE DESI !! What a bril name !

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  2. Veena, That is a good one !! Sitting on the fence....bee desi or beedesi ? choose only one :)

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  4. Beedesi name is wonderful and proud to be a Beedesi...

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  5. truly brilliant name. count me in for one of the bees pls.

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