Cindy Grisdela class on improv curved piecing - Part One

Our quilt guild recently hosted a 2-day zoom class with Cindy Grisdela on improv curved piecing.  Even though I've done a lot of this before, I always jump at the chance to take classes and see what I can learn from either the teacher or from the other students.  This was no exception.

I made 9 blocks that were about 15" square.  I used a combination of several different hand dyed fabrics and a few commercial prints.  One of the zingers that I added was a black and white stripe cut very thin.  Here are the 9 blocks that were completed during the class.

I didn't like the way it looked for several reasons:

   - The orange backgrounds were too bright

   - I thought that it needed more movement, and continuity

   - It could be bigger

I cut out a few small circles from Ricky Tims poly stable stuff and pinned them up.  That looked really good to me.

Then I took out all of the orange backgrounds and made a few more potential starts to blocks.  Some of the circles were covered with fabric.

It started to look better.  Then I made a decision about the backgrounds on the two bottom blocks and  thought about making 3 more blocks to get a little more movement on the bottom left.  What I ended up with were just the nine blocks that were 15-3/4" to 14-1/2" square.  I decided to square them all up to 14-1/2" and started covering the circles with fabric.  Here is what that all ended up looking like.

I decided that this piece was done and that I didn't need to keep making it bigger.   (Mostly because I have two other garden ladies all ready to start and I'd rather work on those for now.)  So, I stitched down all the little circles and called it complete.

I hope you like the way the top turned out.