Tag Archives: planned improv

Curves Mini Quilt for Curated Quilts: Finished Quilt • 12 Comments

sarah • January 2, 2019

The Curves Mini Quilts challenge for Curated Quilts ends today. I love quilt challenges for a variety of reasons. The small size of a mini quilt is a great way to play with a new or different technique. When the Curves challenge was announced I loved the palette (though I totally missed that white was in the list) and knew that I would do something with gentle improv curves.

I was out of town for 9 days in December without my sewing machine, so I packed along my fabric, rotary cutter, and small cutting mat. This allowed me to work in my hotel room to prep all my pieces for the mini quilt.

When I returned home I needed to finish up one last December project before I could get to work on this project beginning January 1st. But since my pieces were all cut and organized, the units went together quickly.

I trimmed them down to 4-inch squares.

I opted to add in the white from the palette with my echo walking foot quilting. The 10.5" x 10.5" quilt was finished with a faced binding.

I'm linking up to the Curated Quilts Curves Mini Quilt Challenge call for entries and Michelle's Beauties Pageant, and Wendy's Peacock Party, and TGIFF with Anja. There are so many other beautiful submissions. Congratulations to everyone who participated.

Design Wall Wednesday: December 5, 2018 • 10 Comments

sarah • December 5, 2018

This week the new project on the design wall is my Improv Tumbler that I'm making for my Island Batik Ambassador "Whimsical and Wonky" challenge this month. All of my fabrics are from the Paisley Dot Brights 10" stack (provided to me by Island Batik). I'm going for a color wash effect. I was able to get all of my whole tumblers onto the wall. I have a pile of half tumblers that I will use to fill in the ends of each row and perhaps piece together to fill in if needed. These improv tumblers were cut freehand with a rotary cutter, without the use of a ruler or template.

I look forward to starting to get this one sewn together. It's shown on a 48" wide design wall, so I expect it will shrink up up around 36" wide.

Edited to add: A little more on this project can be found in this earlier post. And it's based on my Improv Tumbler Mini (which I miss).

What's on your design wall this week?

Jungle Cabin: Finished Quilt • 8 Comments

sarah • November 30, 2018

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, including products from Aurifil and Hobbs.

Our November Island Batik Ambassador challenge was to use log cabins. Log cabin blocks are so versatile. Many of us decided to utilize our 2 1/2" strip precuts. I thought this would be a great opportunity to do just that and brought out my Jungle Cruise strips. This collection is full of color in a variety of prints: tortoise shell, giraffe, snake skin, cheetah, reptile, and fern/leaf. My accompanying yardage was snake skin in hay and giraffe in citrine.

I chose to feature some of the brighter colored 2 1/2" strips with Snake Skin in Hay as my light neutral to contrast. I considered starting with a rectangle in the center of my single large log cabin, but eventually chose to start with an 8 1/2" center square (unfinished). It was once I had added my fourth side to the log cabin that I decided I really did want a rectangular center section. So I chopped off the side to trim down my center piece to (what would have started at) 6 1/2" x 8 1/2". There wasn't anything magical about this size except that the finished dimensions were both multiples of 2, since the 2 1/2" strips would finish at 2" wide.

From this point I worked improvisationally, auditioning colors for the next strips as I went. I had a slightly different vision in mind (which I'll consider for a future project), but I'm pleased with the final composition. It finished at approximately 38" x 40".

I opted to try out Hobbs Tuscany 100% wool batting for the first time with this project. I was a bit concerned that the higher loft than I'm used to would create a problem quilting on my domestic machine, but it was very easy to work with. My quilting all had the same density, but I think I'll be using some of the batting scraps to play around with mixing in some more dense quilting to really make the less quilted areas pop. Compared to my default cotton batting, this quilt is puffier and lighter weight. The wool batting seemed to cause less drag as I pushed the quilt around to do the quilting.

Jungle Cabin was quilted with Aurifil 50wt #2310 Light Beige thread. I opted for ribbon candy in the colored strips and I created a 1-inch grid of wavy lines in the background.

Giraffes are one of my favorite animals. I just love this giraffe print I chose for the back. Sometimes the favorite print going on the back of a quilt is a great way to enjoy a large piece of it.