Tag Archives: Kona cotton

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Last month, Chris gave us the open-ended invitation to play with line in our improv blocks for her. Straight lines and how they intersect, or how they don't. She asked for black background (I used Kona Black) and as many colors as we like (at least two) for our lines, preferably brights.

My lines all vary between 1/8" and 1/2" in width. I really enjoy the look and process of piecing a skinny 1/8" strip. So I started with that.

This first one is about 12" x 12" with 1/8" strips in three colors. Technically the lines intersect somewhere to the lower left outside of the block. This block accidentally has 90's neon laser photo backdrop vibes for me.

My second block is 8" x 8" and more precise with two 1/2" strips intersecting in the center of the block.

My last block is about 7" x 6" and I thought of the branches on a plant or the veins on a leaf.

Thanks for visiting!

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Welcome to my stop on Bobbie's UFOvember Blog Hop. I shared an intro post with the list of everyone participating in UFOvember at the beginning of the month and a few days ago I shared a list (with photos) of all my WIPs. (I realized today I missed one, so it's been aded to the list.) I find that knowing what all the projects are helps me make decisions about prioritizing what to work on. This week folks were resuming a UFO. "Pick up a UFO right where you left off, get it done, happy ending!"

With a newly updated list "in hand" for the first time in over two years, I began working my way through the quilts that just need binding, focusing on the little ones first this month. So I'm happy to share eleven finished quilts with you for my stop on the hop. These mini quilts were all quilted and trimmed, so I spent time this week making and attaching the binding on each of them.

Typically, I bind my quilts with double fold bias binding by machine. But the bulk of double fold is a little much for a tiny little quilt, so I followed Quilting Jetgirl's lead to use single fold binding for my mini mini quilts. I used her Binding Mini Mini Quilts Tutorial as a jumping off point and adjusted as I needed. Most notably, I decided on 1 1/4" wide strips for my binding, because my batting is very low loft.

So now, a little quilt parade. Nine of them are artist trading card sized, 2 1/2" x 3 1/2".

And these two are the big ones, 5 1/4” x 2 3/4” and 4 1/2” x 4”.

These were such a fun way to play with my tiniest scraps of solids using my Scrappy Slab technique. I teach my Creating a Scrappy Slab workshop for guilds, offer it as a lecture/demo presentation on Zoom for guilds, and have an on-demand Creating a Scrappy Slab class available for individuals.

In all of my planned improv work I set parameters for myself. This series started out as monochromatic and built only from my little scraps of fabric. I'd initially been thinking to make them business card sized, but settled on the 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" artist trading card size, which made them roughly playing card sized.

Here's a peak at the backs.

Thanks for visiting! Be sure to check out the full list of UFOvember blog hop participants. So far folks have shared their UFO inventories, including tips for keeping track of yours, and their plans and finishes resuming some of those projects. In the last two weeks of the month we'll hear from people who are reworking and rehoming their UFOs. Lots of good stuff!

Have you resumed work on a UFO lately? Tell me about it in the comments!

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In September, Carole asked us to use time as our inspiration for her blocks. She asked us to use solids only with any shape or image that relates to time. And she chose the stunning tetrad palette of blue-green, red-violet, red-orange, and yellow-green (including recommended Kona suggestions to help us out).

My first thought that I couldn't shake was the idea of time passing as my children grow. I created a "watch me grow" block of sorts where I improv pieced the bodies of the three images and then added needle turn appliqué for the heads.

My second block was a simple timeline. It is meaningful to me because it represents the births (not to scale) of me and my siblings. I'm the oldest by 8 years.

My final block was a simple 4-patch block to represent the found seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall.

These colors were a joy to work with and I really enjoyed the process of puzzling out my plan to construct the children. Other blocks created in the bee included inspiration from song lyrics,  hashmarks, and a clock.

This month we're sewing improv Christmas blocks, but I also need to show you the improv Line blocks I made last month.

Happy sewing!