In June, Chris shared photos of Pueblo pottery as our inspiration for improv piecing our blocks for her. Her husband has the book From This Earth: The Ancient Art of Pueblo Pottery by Stewart Peckham which inspired her prompt. She asked us to make 1-2 blocks that could be square or rectangular and around 12-13" on one side. Our palette was to Kona Natural, Bone, Ivory, Haze, or Dove for the background and Kona Hibiscus, Crimson, Roasted Pecan, or Indigo for the features color, or similar.

These are not colors typically in my stash so I took the opportunity to add to my solids and placed an order. Here's what I got. (I label the selvage of my solids in Sharpie so I know what is what.) When my fabrics arrived I really loved all the light neutrals together. I may circle back to using them all together in some way.

For my first block, I settled on Haze and Hibiscus. There was an image with skinny stripes in a stair step pattern that caught my eye.

These are my initial pieces. My purple skinny strips finish at 1/8" wide. I wanted to join them at a right angle so I cut two sections of my strips at opposite 45 degree angles. The section in the upper right is larger color block sections. This resulted in a y-seam.

I started by piecing my strips on the 45 degree angle seam, figuring I could be more precise with matching up my purple strips if I sewed this seam first.

Next I pieced in the center section and added more background around the right and bottom sides.

Here's my finished block. I think it finished at about 10" x 14".

For my second block, I chose Ivory & Roasted Pecan. I picked a small section of one of the designs that made me think of improv triangles.

Here it is before trimming up. I paired my improv triangles with smooth improv curved piecing. It's slightly larger than my first block.

I hear Chris is working on her quilt and look forward to seeing it come together!