Mod Mosaic Workshop

I've been asked by other Lower Mainland quilt guilds to give workshops.  Actually, I've been asked to give trunk shows to 4 quilt guilds around Vancouver, and out of them was asked to do two workshops.  The Ridge Meadows Quilt Guild asked me to do a Mod Mosaic workshop on a Saturday.

Here's the blocks they created.

 

Then we tried some layout and background colour ideas.

 

These blocks were really bright and kid-like so the bright background works well.

 

These blocks were made from a fabric-by-the-pound sale.  How come I never find find good scraps like this?

 

These blocks are made from some really high quality flannel.  I don't think we actually decided on a background fabric.  On the lower left of the big block you can see where the grout fabric was one of the flannels, but didn't really stand out enough, so she switched to the cream.

 

This red and turquoise conbo really looks good against a tomato red.

 

Although these blocks are red and gray, they really popped on this orangy red fabric.

 

These brown and blue blocks will become a bag with the medium blue filling in between.

Elizabeth Hartman's Mod Mosaic technique can be found on her blog (Oh Fransson) by following the link.  I find that most people don't use scraps, so start by cutting one strip from each fabric you will be using.  I cut strips 3 inches wide, 3.5 inches wide, 4 inches, 4.5 inches and 5 inches.  So each fabric's strip is a different width.  These strips are wide enough so you can cut across it to produce blocks from 2 inch to 8 inch to use.  As soon as you use up a strip, cut another one, but at a different width from the one you just finished.

This was a really fun workshop to do and the process is surprisingly complicated.  I had no idea how many blocks each person would be able to make in a day, so was relieved that everyone ended up with 4 or more.  The biggest challenge was for the "planners" who tried to design each block.  I kept trying to get them to loosen up and just grab any strip to add to the block.

The other trick to this technique, is remembering to sew the grout strip between each piece.  And once you sew a grout strip on to a piece, you are committed to sewing onto the other side of the grout before adding elsewhere to the block.  If you don't you end up with 2 grout lines together...

... or a piece with no grout.