Tag Archives: improv

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In August, Emily pointed us to Bow Bridge in Central Park at spring sunny day by Helen Denisevich for our color inspiration. She asked us to choose two color groupings inspired by the vibrant colors in the watercolor and ink painting. She wanted a 12" x 12" block with a small section of one color group surrounded by the second color group. Any improv we'd like!

I loved the greens in the painting, ranging from yellow-greens into blue-greens, so I pulled fabric for that to be one of my groupings. Then I focused on the pinks in the tree and chose a variety of pinks, light to dark.

My finished block is approximately 12" x 12". The pink section in the center was informed by the shape of my scraps, starting with the largest triangle in the center.

The green section to the left of my center section was informed by scraps that were wedge shaped.

I pieced green strips for the top section, but when that was too boring for me I made a couple vertical slices to insert additional pieced sections.

I love having beautiful, saturated bold colors in a prompt. And the freedom to do any improv pieced we'd like meant that I could just play with the fabric. It was such a joy to create.

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This is my submission for the "Just the Top" category of the Pantone Quilt Challenge 2023.

  • Viva Magenta Confetti
  • 32.5" x 32.5"
  • Sarah Goer, USA

I spent 25 days of daily practice building these improv blocks. Then trimmed them all to the same size block. My background fabrics are pinks, oranges, and yellows, including Kona Pomegranate (my Viva Magenta). My strips are all turquoise/aqua in a variety of values. And my corner triangles are mostly greens in light to medium values. I tipped close to yellow with the inclusion of Kona Acid Lime and Kona Limelight.

I'm linking up with "Just the Top" for the Viva Magenta challenge. Thank you to Sarah and Elizabeth for hosting, and to all the judges and sponsors!

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In September Elizabeth chose this happy color palette and the traditional inspiration of the Grandmother's Fan quilt block with some guidelines for us to use improv piecing to modernize the block.

I had such fun creating these blocks for Elizabeth. The best part of improv is that the leftover bits that don't fit into one block became the sourdough starter for me to begin the next block. The second best part is that you can't tell where I made "mistakes" cause it's improv and I just rolled with it!

You can learn all the improv skills I used here in my Building an Improv Toolbox workshop. I'm available for in-person and Zoom workshops for guilds. And individuals can signup now for my November 5 workshop with QuiltFest Virtual Schoolhouse #3.

Can't wait to see Elizabeth's finished quilt!