Tag Archives: improv piecing

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I couldn't resist the appeal of the mini swap with The Modern Quilt Guild in which we would exchange our mini quilts at QuiltCon. I was assigned Ginger as my secret partner and found inspiration in her Pinterest account. Specifically, I was drawn to the colors in this pin and loved the color wash design and spiral quilting in this one. I'm not sure how I came up with the idea to make improv tumbler blocks. It mostly started as an exercise in figuring out if I could achieve it.

I started by cutting three tumblers from each fabric as I worked through scraps and stash choosing fabrics. I aimed for about 3" tall using my cutting matt as a guide, but all of my cutting was done with a rotary cutter and no ruler. I wanted a variety of tumbler shapes, but aimed for generally 1 1/2 - 2" wide on the narrower edge and 3 - 3 1/2" wide on the wider edge. Once I'd cut a bunch of tumblers, I started fiddling with layout on my design wall and ended up with this plan.

The easiest part of the piecing was connecting the tumblers in each row. The first row I pieced (the bottom row) came out to be pretty curved (which I adjusted a bit by picking out one seam), so from then on I worked to compensate for that a bit as I pieced. It's fun to watch the project shrink up as the piecing happens.

Once my rows were complete, I decided to use smooth curves to connect the rows.

So what's a girl to do when she's up against a deadline and also needs to pack for QuiltCon? Well, naturally, she should decide to use thirteen thread colors and dozens of starts and stops to quilt her mini! Right? That's totally a sound decision, eh?

I pulled all my Aurifil (50 wt.) that was even close to a color used in the quilt. From left to right they are #2735 Medium Blue, #5018 Grass Green, #1125 Medium Teal, #2783 Medium Delft Blue, #1231 Spring Green, #2135 Yellow, #3920 Golden Glow - Variegated, #1114 Grass Green, #2810 Turquoise, #4093 Jade, #2582 Dark Violet, #1100 Red Plum, and #2588 Light Magenta. Plus I attached the binding with #2605 Grey. If I stashed different weights of thread, I totally would have thrown them in too!

Then I stitched overlapping spirals that were approximately 3" in diameter. I mostly aimed to match the thread color to the area of the fabric that I was quilting on, but of course there were some great spots where strong contrast occurred as well. Here's where I started.

And some finished views.

I went to Savannah with zero threads tied and buried and my binding was only attached to the front of my quilt. I worked on burying threads on Thursday and Friday while watching demos and sitting near outlets to charge my phone. I got to give a handful of one-on-one demos myself on how to bury threads. ;-) Friday evening after dinner, I finished the final stitching on the binding. Once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator? I like that my late night hotel photo shows the texture of the quilting so well.

And of course, I took the quilt out for a mini photo shoot before delivering it to Ginger.

 

Here are Susan, myself and Ginger. We were connected in a little loop for the swap. Susan made for me, I made for Ginger, and Ginger made for Susan. We're each holding the quilt we received. I love the beautiful mini I received from Susan. It has some lovely embroidery detail that you can't see in the picture. And I adore the striped binding!

Thanks for visiting! I'm officially on an IG swap break for the time being... but boy are they fun!

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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.