Tag Archives: improv piecing

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My April block for Charles was a labor of love. With permission from the photographer, Keith Dotson, Charles asked us to "recreate" our one-tenth of a photo. (We only got our photo and didn't get to see the other parts.) I'm excited to share my process with you here for my chunk of the photo.

Charles asked us to work in an analogous fabric palette of solids with a wide variety of values including colors from 5 adjacent rows. I picked teals/turquoises and considered swinging into true blue or swinging into green. I started by pulling my fabric (yardage and scraps) for all 7 rows of the Kona card to really consider variety of color and value before I decided to go with the greens.

This is the portion of the photo I was assigned. This was ALL I saw to create my block.

Every improv project for me is a matter of starting with components. This was no different even though it was guided by the photo of the door. The photo above left shows me auditioning fabric combinations for different sections. And the photos above right shows my finished door. I purposely built it a bit oversized and left the outer edges messy. I always wait to trim until I'm sewing onto something else.

Then I got started on the bricks. I couldn't resist piecing the bricks AND the mortar, which meant I got to piece a bunch of skinny strips (1/8" finished width). I started by cutting out a bunch of bricks in a variety of medium to dark values in a variety of colors to make the wall scrappy. Then I sewed those onto the light/medium valued strips on the short sides so I could build the rows. From there I worked on arranging them into the finished rows, piecing together the pieces in each row, and then joining the rows with skinny strips pieced in between each row. I was purposely scrappy with the mortar fabrics as well. The last photo above shows me auditioning light fabrics to be the portions of the building that connect to that section of bricks.

And here's the brick wall once I'd pieced it all together.

I work on a messy table (you can actually see fabrics from a section project I was working on concurrently) and piece multiple sections at the same time.

The finished side window, auditioning the top fabric.

Above left: more auditioning of fabrics. Above right: I'd pieced the radiating lines of the upper window and needed to join it to the "quarter circle" portion of the window. You may be able to see the slight shadow of where the two sections overlap by about a half inch so that once joined with a 1/4" seam allowance they would lay flat.

Once I pieced this seam, I was able to add the curved lines into the window (see below).

Above left: the finished main components of my section of the door photo. From here I worked to add in strips for the detail of the trip, paying attention to the overall size and scale of where things should roughly connect. Above right: finished before trimming the whole block. I had trimmed the bottom of the sections on the left as a means to get things lined up well. The process was improv, so we were never aiming for photo realism, but I still looked at the ratios of how things connected in the photo to make decisions about how I aligned my sections.

This is my completed 14" x 28" panel. I am so very proud of it!

Tada! Can you tell I used my favorite colors? The piece above my block is my signature block for Charles (before I wrote on it). I used a section of what I trimmed off the top of the window.

Charles recently shared all the blocks together on his design wall. (He showed great restraint by not opening any of the packages until they are ALL arrived!) Friends, I am SO excited about this quilt. What a great vision and I'm so proud of the work we all did on these blocks. He shared these two photos for me to share here with you... the full black and white photo of the door by Keith Dotson and all 10 blocks on the design wall.

photo by Keith Dotson
Quilts Unscripted Bee Blocks for Charles

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On March 1, we each passed our starting unit to the next quilter in the group. There are ten of us participating so we will add on to each of 9 other projects, while others add on to our projects, and our completed quilt tops will return to us December 1.

First, an update on my project. In round one Christine and I swapped projects. I provided a lot of fabric with my project in the same colors and Kona White that you saw in my starting unit. I asked that the design be kept to a medallion, but the starting unit could be off center, and folks could add to as many sides as they'd like. Also, to stick closely to my color palette.

I enjoy the radiating lines and the symmetry. Thank you, Christine!

And I had Christine's project to work on. There was a lot of detail in her starting piece. I keyed into there being a lot of small pieces, fussy cuts, and fabric with metallic print.

Christine included her scraps and said we could add fabrics that fit in her palette. This is the assortment of her scraps.

These are the fabrics I pulled to potentially add in. The only fabric in my stash with metallic print was the car print, and I thought it would work beautifully with her fabric. That was the first piece I cut.

I worked improvisationally from there, thinking roughly about a landscape for this first portion I created.

One of the things she asked of us was to put a solid 1/2" finished strip between the existing section and our addition. I chose mustard yellow solid for my divider, with my added portion on the right side. My section is about 8 inches wide.

This close up shows some of my tiny piecing details with my fussy cut ladybugs and bees.

In April, I received Amy G's project.

Amy's starting unit is the left portion up to and including the vertical, wide, navy strip.

I took inspiration from the shapes in the piecing I received to start building components without a firm plan. I really loved the improv curves that had been added in the previous round so I did more of those.

I enjoyed playing in this palette and mixing in some of my fabrics with Amy's.

While I had Amy G's project, Adrienne had mine. I love that she chose to echo my improv curves. The happy color palette is bringing me joy. I hope folks are enjoying working with the palette. Thank you, Adrienne!

In May, I received Amy W's project. She provided all the fabric for us to use, much of it sparkly, which was a fun change from my usual quilting cotton.

The project came to me in a non-rectangular shape, so I set out to add to the top edge and bring it back to rectangular.

Roughly speaking I knew I needed taller components on the left side and shorter components on the right side. I started with flying geese since it used triangles that were throughout the piece, but did something a little different. I used some scraps to make strip sets to be part of the background of a couple geese blocks and added curves since there was some curved piecing in the most recent addition.

I made myself a template that would match the curved/bended edge along the top and bring the piece into a rectangle. I built my components slightly oversized so that I could trim them down to this shape.

Before attaching to the starting piece, I trimmed only the bottom edge of my section. As I tell my students, when improv piecing I leave the edges messy instead of trimming along the way. The only edges I worry about trimming are the ones I'm sewing next. Leaving the rest to trim after gives me the most versatility.

If I remember correctly, my tall side on the left is about 6 inches tall and the shorter end on the right is about 4 inches tall. Once I pieced my section up I trimmed the rest of my part to make an overall rectangle.

In these closeups you can see the sparkle in the fabric. Amy told us that we could add black and white prints since she had used black and white strips in her starting unit. I chose a black and white print that reads as a stripe.

While I was working on Amy's quilt, Susie had my project. She said that she loves orange. She added the portion on the left edge in her photo. Thank you, Susie!

I'm so glad that I opted in to participate in this round robin. I am enjoying the challenge each month. This month I'll be working in oranges and greys.

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To kick off year six of Quilts Unscripted Bee, Emily asked us for 6" x 12" blocks inspired by rays of sunshine and colors reminiscent of a spring bouquet - pink, orange, yellow, with small amounts of lime or sky blue in medium and light colors.

This was such a happy palette to work with. She invited us to work in some improv piecing within our rays. I had really enjoyed piecing improv wedges for the start of my round robin quilt and the center of one of these previous bee blocks, so I set off to make improv wedges with in deep pink and orange.

That wedge unit went into this block.

One of my favorite feature elements is the 1/8" finished pieced strip, so I decided to work one into my second block, coupled with wedges going two different directions.

Here's the full view of my two 6" x 12" blocks. This is going to be such a happy quilt. I look forward to seeing it all put together. Have fun, Emily!