Tag Archives: planned improv

Modern Batik Challenge: Scrappy Squares • 18 Comments

sarah • June 29, 2018

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

This month's Island Batik challenge was to go modern. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to play with my Planned Improv: Scrappy Squares technique in a larger scale.

I settled on a scrappy palette of pink, purple, navy, and turquoise, using the light Lilac fabric for my background. The Lilac was a limiting factor as I had only half a yard. (I ended up with about 8" x 10" of Lilac leftover.) Here are some of my feature fabrics:

Lavender Snowflake (Mountain's Majesty)
Grape Juice Pinecone (Mountain's Majesty)
Lavender Bark (Morning Sunshine)
Turquoise Bark (Morning Sunshine)
Navy (Foundations - Basics)
Grape Juice Jungle Animals (Petting Zoo)
Turquoise Jungle Animals (Petting Zoo)

The Planned Improv: Scrappy Squares technique revolves around starting with squares and designing the layout before cutting background pieces.

It's a bit of a puzzle. This one was more complicated than normal and I painted myself into a bit of a corner. No worries! I was able to finish piecing it with a series of partial seams.

This was my final seam of the quilt top -- the little partial seam right in the middle!

Once it was all together I had to contemplate quilting motifs. I chose Aurifil 50wt Light Lilac (#2510) for the background and Berrylicious Variegated (#4647) for the squares.

First I did some walking foot quilting to stitch in the ditch quilting in Light Lilac along the perimeter of the sections of squares.

Then I did a jagged stipple in Light Lilac all over the background. Finally, I finished up by quilting Berrylicious spirals throughout the square sections. The hot pink, turquoise, and white was the perfect companion to my palette! I chose a curvy motif to contrast the jagged quilting in the background.

I finished the quilt with a faced binding. I love how the squares and the quilting float all the way to the edge of the quilt.

The quilt finished at approximately 40" x 40". The batting is Quilter's Dream Cotton Select.

Thank you for visiting to see my Island Batik Modern Batik baby quilt!

Check out some of the other modern creations this month by Island Batik Ambassadors:

Myra at Busy Hands Quilts

Connie at Freemotion by the River

Tina at Quilting Affection Designs

Steph at Steph Jacobson

Bea at BeaQuilter

Anne at Sweetgrass Designs

Alison at Little Bunny Designs

Sherry at Powered by Quilting

Vicky at Vicky's Crafts and Quilting

I'm linking up to TGIFF and Needle and Thread Thursday.

I've also linked up to 2018 Q2 Finish Along linkup. See my whole Q2 list.

Wonder Full Blog Hop: All About Angles Style • 8 Comments

sarah • June 25, 2018

At Spring Quilt Market I connected with the designers at Sweet Bee Designs. This resulted in Lizzie Clark reaching out to invite me to participate in the Blog Hop for the release of her new fabric line, Wonder Full. It’s a lovely floral line with rich jewel tones and pretty pinks. I'm happy to be sharing two quilt tops with you.

The first thing I noticed when I received the bundle was how much I enjoyed the seven monochromatic pinks together. When I pulled those aside, what remained was the rich jewel tones: the navy/magenta/olive set of fabrics I used for my first quilt top.

In each project I chose a variation of my Planned Improv: All About Angles technique. This is a little more structured than my previous pieces as I altered the technique a bit to be more friendly for using one-sided fabric.

Once I created the units, I used my design wall to audition layouts. I initially planned for a straight layout, but thought a vertical shift in every other column would be interesting.

Then I tried a couple with the blocks placed in alternating directions.

In the end, I really liked the vertical shift layout and also the nine-patch design. I stuck with the vertical shift layout for this first quilt top, which finished at approximately 41" x 46".

Then I used the pinks to whip up a second quilt top. I love that these two projects show the versatility of the initial units. They original units were identically pieced. They vary in placement and the pink sections were trimmed down. This project is 35" x 35".

Thank you for visiting! I’ll update the list of participants with links to their blog posts as they are available . You can also check back on Lizzie’s kickoff post.

6/25 Sarah Goer at Sarah Goer Quilts - you are here!
6/26 Becky Vandenberg at Be So Crafty
6/27 Becca Plymale @sunflowerseams
6/28 Stephanie Jacobson at Steph Jacobson
6/29 Allison Dutton at Allison Sews
6/30 Andy Knowlton at A Bright Corner
7/1 Lissa LaGreca at Lovingly Lissa
7/2 Jennifer Strauser at Dizzy Quilter
7/3 Sherry Shish at Powered By Quilting

Planned Improv Playful Pillow • 16 Comments

sarah • May 31, 2018

The fabrics featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik.

Last month I created Emerald Swallowtail, a baby quilt designed with inspiration from a vintage quilt design. The creation of that quilt resulted in 30 leftover HSTs from the offcuts of my snowball corners. Step 4 of this tutorial shows how I like to sew a second line of stitching before cutting off extra triangles. I prefer to have leftover HSTs instead of just a pile of loose triangles that I'd have to sew bias edges together later to use. I have a bin where I keep orphan bits and blocks that these usually go into. I've used them previously to make mini quilts and small bags. My emerald HSTs didn't even make it into the bin though. I kept them out to use for this months Playful Pillow!

I decided I wanted to make something with the same limited palette as Emerald Swallowtail. I had used all of the green for the quilt (Bubble Hole in Leaf), but I did have yardage left of my neutral (Almond). Designing without a pattern I used a Planned Improv technique to limit myself to the HSTs and Almond yardage for the pillow. I designed on a grid, and decided that triangles could only touch on a point, not on a side. Here's the final plan.

My HSTs were trimmed to 2" x 2". Once they were pieced with filler pieces cut from the background yardage I had a 14" x 14" (unfinished) panel. I added borders to each side, intending to trim down after quilting.

I opted for Hobbs polyester Thermore batting. It is ultra-thin (1/16" loft) and I figured it would be nice for the pillow cover to not get crinkly in the wash. Here's a peak of the Thermore batting layered over my quilt top.

I added a backing layer of fabric for my quilt top before adding some walking foot quilting. I opted to echo each group of triangles approximately 1/8" off the perimeter using 50wt Aurifil #2110, Light Lemon. I'm happy with the look of this. Another option would be to add filler quilting in the background, or to add quilting inside and outside of these echo lines.

My finished pillow cover is 15" x 15".

And here it is with a 16" Poly-fil pillow form. This is the first pillow cover I've made, and I opted for a snug fit. I'm curious how the look would change with a down pillow form.

My back panels have an approximately 7" overlap (more than I think I needed). The back is unquilted fabric, with a hemmed edge. Here's what it looked like while I was in the middle of wrestling the pillow form into the cover. ;-)