Tag Archives: improv piecing

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Finished Quilts

I had two small finishes this week. They'll be featured on the blog soon. I turned my improv curves from last week into my Disney Mug Rug and shipped off my swap package this week. Once I get confirmation that my partner has received it, I'll share it with you.

My daughter and I finally sat down to put the binding on her doll quilt. It's all done and ready to deliver. She's so pleased. Today I got the report that at school she said, "I just want to sew and sew and sew." I totally know what you mean, kid!

 

New Focus

I have a goal to finish this one by the end of the month. I thought I had nearly all the blocks complete and just had to trim them up and stitch them together. When I opened the box with less than two weeks left in the month, I found I only have 92 complete blocks out of my planned 144! Eek! So step one was to create a new slab of scraps that would coordinate with my original scraps. I'm hoping once this slab becomes 40 more blocks and they get sprinkled throughout the quilt that it will all work out. It uses a bunch of fabrics that were used previously, with quite a few new ones. I'm worried about that green on the top of the right edge.

 

Bee Blocks

And because I really have an inability to focus on just one project, I took a break from the above project today and finished up my four blocks for this month's do. Good Stitches for Serenity Circle. They will be trimmed down a smidge to 8 1/2" by 16 1/2" each.

We're using this Craftsy tutorial. They went together in less than an hour and a half total, but a couple are wonky in places. Ailish may need to starch them into submission when she puts the quilt top together. ;-) The tutorial is pretty straightforward, but I'd recommend that at the start of each seam, you offset the edge by about a half inch (see below). I only did this on the last (smallest) seams and I think it would have helped on the other seams as well.

 

Thanks for visiting! I'm linking up to Midweek Makers and Needle and Thread Thursday.

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This past week my family was in New Mexico for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. My sister and brother-in-law have been a couple times, and it sounded like a great experience. We decided we'd meet there for this year's Fiesta. Bonus! Balloons and baby nephew! Here are a few highlights from the photos I took.

 

Shopping

While I was in town for the Fiesta, I visited Hip Stitch, a lovely quilt shop located conveniently a mile down the street from my hotel. The kids and I had a great time. They each had $10 to spend and were able to spend nearly every penny. They both decided on some hot air balloon fabric. I'm counting on one of them being willing to give me a small piece to make myself a hot air balloon mini quilt to remember the trip, since I didn't seem to win the awesome quilt being raffled off at the Fiesta (see below). They each got yardage of these crazy sushi making cats. No idea what their plans are for that one! My daughter also picked up a little of the Schmitties in dusty blue, from Cotton and Steel's Cat Lady line.

I had no problem finding a lot of fabric I like in the shop, and since we were shopping on my birthday, I got 20% off my entire purchase! What a lovely surprise. My mom had given me some money to spend on my trip and I found the perfect souvenirs, FABRIC! Oh, I also bought a Zirkel. Thanks, Mom! I picked a couple from Tula Pink's Slow and Steady, and a few that will work in my Swoon project, including my first cut of Moda Grunge. I couldn't resist taking the last two yards from the bolt of the rainbow fabric. Never pass up a good rainbow fabric!

Additionally, we did a day trip to Santa Fe. (Non-sewing related side note: If you're ever in Santa Fe, check out Meow Wolf! So much fun!) We stumbled across the Quilt Fiesta, a small quilt show put on by Northern New Mexico Quilt Guild. So I got to do a little more fabric shopping. ;-)

 

Beautiful Quilts

It was such a nice surprise to run across the Quilt Fiesta. Here are a few of my favorite quilts from the show.

Purple Rain by Deb Martinez
Artists' Description: The quilt used up so many of my scraps! The back used even more. Just working through my stash.
Inspiration: Pattern - Patternworks - Japanese Windows

 

Dancing Duo by Donna La Bombard, quilted by Tessa Atwood
Artists' Description: My parents were dancing at my mother's 85th birthday party when I took a photograph. Some of the material in her shirt comes from what she was wearing that day.
Inspiration: Adapted from family photo

 

Under the Sea* by Susan Kayar
Artists' Description: I started with the kit for Underwater Rhapsody by Barbara Jones (AQS) but switched early on to using marine biology textbooks and dive buddies' photos of real fish plus my own fabrics.
Inspiration: Adapted from Underwater Rhapsody by Barbara Jones

*I was unable to get a full shot of the quilt, so this is just the lower half.

 

Nambe Rainbow by Judy Johnson
Artists' Description: I wanted to use my scraps to make a quilt in rainbow colors. I chose a diagonal uneven strip block and an off center barn-raising layout just because I like it.
Inspiration: Original

 

Lone Star by Carol Naranjo, quilted by Millie Young
Artists' Description: My design comes from the Easy Lone Star class taught by Patty Bailey at SFQ in 2014. This is the third quilt I've ever made after learning patchwork and rail fence at SFQ.
Inspiration: class by Patsy Bailey

 

giraffe quilt by Lynne Horpedahl
This quilt was part of a Contemporary Quilting display. I really wanted to take him home with me! :-)

 

Plus, here's the amazing opportunity quilt from the New Mexico Quilters' Association. Some lucky winner got to bring it home from the Balloon Fiesta on Sunday.

 

La Passacaglia

Since I was traveling, I brought along my La Passacaglia project. I need a better storage/travel solution. What do you keep your EPP stuff in? I mostly only worked on it on the airplanes, but I did make some progress and those picky little triangles are growing on me.

 

Improv Curves

I missed my sewing machine while I was away and dove right into my first attempt at improv curves when I got home. I am in love! Here's my first piece.

 

Now that I'm home from vacation, it's time to clean the sewing room and reassess what my priorities are. My Q4 goal post is in draft form, so that'll be up soon. Mostly I'm just overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done around the house as well as all the things sneaking up on my calendar.

Thank you for visiting! I'm linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday and Midweek Makers.

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It's about time that I start sharing about what I made at QuiltCon. I'm no longer exhausted just thinking about the whirlwind that was my first QuiltCon experience. I'm working on some other deadline sewing and just itching to get back to playing with my newest projects that were started at QuiltCon.

I dove in with a 6-hour class on Thursday, Intermediate Improv: Crosses, Cabins and Colors with Rossie Hutchinson. I had the pleasure of being in class with a couple of my guildmates, which was great since I only joined the Silicon Valley Modern Quilt Guild chapter in October and I'm still getting to know people. Rossie was delightful. She packed in a great amount of content with the perfect balance of instruction time and sewing time. In the first three hours of the class she taught her techniques for improv crosses, liberated log cabins and quartered log cabins, giving us time to complete at least one of each of these blocks. The afternoon included additional sewing time and instruction on color palettes and composition within a project, as well as details about combining odd-sized and irregular blocks to put it all together. Everything Rossie had to say was invaluable. She was also a lovely person and an entertaining speaker. I would take any class she taught in the future!

We started with the crosses. They go together quickly and only require choosing two fabrics  at a time (that contrast in color or value) as the blocks are constructed in pairs. I opted for 11" tall blocks, which will be pieced into rows in the final project. This was the project that I spent most of my extra sewing time working on. It was rewarding to see the pile of blocks add up so quickly. My fabric pull for this block was centered around the multi-color floral print you see in the second photo below. The majority of my stash is blenders, so I started with the floral to set my palette and chose my other fabrics from there, looking for a range of values and multiple fabrics in each of the colors.

The second block we worked on felt most challenging to me. A liberated log cabin has so many options. I consider the block I made incomplete, both because I don't like the pink as the final border and because I'd want to work with larger sized blocks, but this isn't a project I intend to pursue right now. I loved Rossie's sample for this block, but I think I'd do better with this type of project at home where I could spread out in my sewing room and work on multiple blocks at once. I think the benefit of working on multiple blocks at once would be seeing what patterns emerge. I didn't really have a plan as I worked on this block. You see I chose to work with a different palette (since I couldn't decide on just one for the class, I brought two), chosen around the Cotton & Steel Viewfinders fabric, and already in my incomplete block I've used 6 different fabrics. The other benefit of working on multiple blocks at once would be using the extra bits from one block in the construction of the other block, which I think would allow for some cohesion from the beginning. I didn't dislike this block technique. I just liked the other two better. I think this block is destined for my orphan block box for the time being. :-)

Our third block for class was the quartered log cabin. After the unlimited options of the liberated log cabin block, I liked moving on to this one since it required using only five fabrics per block. The construction was also relatively simple and fast. (Read Rossie's post with her tutorial on the Quartered Log Cabins.) I opted to use the same Cotton & Steel Jacks fabric for all my center squares. I made three blocks, that were then cut in quarters to make these twelve units, so I would have enough pieces to play with composition a bit. I'll definitely continue to work on this one. Here's what I've got so far from class.

One of my favorite take aways from this class was Rossie's perspective of "what can you add to it to fix it?" with regard to color. There was also an informal discussion in class about what we stash and cutting loose fabrics we don't love. I added, "you'll never use a fabric you don't love to try to fix something that you're trying to love." As I mentioned above, I mostly stash blenders. That's simply because that's what I'm drawn to in the shop and they are so easy for me to use. I've worked on my stash over the last year and there are two big things that have helped me. My first tip is: Have it all visible. (You can see most of mine in this post.) You can't use what you don't know you have. Also, it's easy to see what your gaps are. My second tip is: Purge what you don't love anymore. You may have loved it before, but if you don't now, get rid of it. I have used some up making quick gifts. I've given some to friends. I've donated some. You could also sell it or trade with friends.

Interested in more about how Rossie designs with color? Here's her blog post about her participation as this month's Mighty Lucky Quilting Club instructor.

 

I wanted to take an opportunity in each of my class posts to share some of the quilts I enjoyed at QuiltCon. This first one is Windmill Explosion and is the Silicon Valley Modern Quilt Guild charity quilt that I contributed to. It was so much fun to see the amazing variety of quilts on display for the charity quilt challenge. I didn't take nearly enough pictures of all of them.

 

This next one was in the show in the Michael Miller Glitz Fabric Challenge division. The quilt is called Better Together and was made by Laura West Kong. It won two beautiful ribbons, 3rd place in the division and Judge's Choice. I have been drawn to ampersands lately, as my 5-year-old son is really excited about them. I love the composition in this quilt with the use of dark and light, and the bright colors in the ampersand. The combination of improv technique with careful planning is amazing. I loved Laura's message as well. The artist statement reads:

My inspiration for this quilt is a celebration of diversity. It's so hard to believe that in 2016 we haven't learned to accept and embrace each other's differences. Our differences make this world a richer, more wonderful place. You AND me. No discrimination. No division. Complementing each other. Better together. Not apart.

Making this quilt was a challenge both emotionally for what it meant to me, and technically, because although it's an improvisational design, it also required a great deal of precision.

And because those ribbons are such amazing works of art themselves, a closeup of them.

 

Giveaway *closed*

I'm sharing some of my goodies from QuiltCon with one of you. I'll draw one winner on March 24th at 1pm PST out of all entries on my five posts about my QuiltCon classes. (This is the first of the five posts.) The drawing is open to everyone. To enter, please comment below and tell me if you've tried improv and what your favorite improv block/style is. Followers can get a second entry by posting a second comment to tell me how you follow me (Bloglovin', Instagram, etc.). Thank you! Thank you to everyone who entered. The winner is Anja of Anja Quilts!