Improv Spotted Graffiti - part Two

This is a continuation of the previous post about the making of  Improv Spotted Graffiti.  One thing about improv quilts is that they can turn our pretty wonky and that does affect how the viewer interprets balance.  I just kept playing with dots to try to get some balance on this piece and made several changes along the way.  Here's where I ended up.  I still felt that it was unbalanced.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, I thought that making it even more wonky might be the ticket.  It seemed like it was calling out for a border of some type with the improv pieced material.  So, I placed the piece wonky on my design wall and added black strips to show where I needed to add pieces.

I didn't know if this would make it OK or not.  Stay tuned to see what happens!

Spotted Graffiti Improv - Part One

I bought 4 yards of the beautiful Spotted Graffiti fabric designed by Marcia Derse a little while ago.  I just loved the colors and texture of the browns and blues.  I was saving it for a background for one of my garden ladies, but didn't use it for that series.  So, I cut off 2 yards to save, and used the rest for an improv quilt.  Not having any idea where I was heading, I pulled fabrics that went with the colors of the fabric.

I recently made some improv quilts using solids and hand dyed fabric, and I wanted to see how the process would work with patterned fabric.  A Duckworth type of improv block seemed to be the best idea.  So, I cut strips out of the turquoise and light tans and light blues and sewed them together in log cabin style.  I made blocks that were about 9" (or so) square and sewed them together to end up with 15" square blocks of improv pieced fabric.

I layered those with the 15" squares of the background fabric and made initial curved improv cuts.  I knew that the improv pieced fabric needed to have a  strip of plain color between it and the patterned background, so I sewed either dark brown or medium blue to the inner piece.   Then, I made a second cut on the background and pieced it together. 

I ended up with 4 blocks that had predominately the pieced fabric on the larger outer section, and a few more of the ones with the pieced fabric on the inner, smaller section.  At some point, I needed to make more of the pieced fabric, and I knew that these didn't need to be too big, so I made four of those and just trimmed them off to make a corner area.  These were then pieced into the background fabric.  

I tried several layouts and ended up with the third one.  

The blocks are all different sizes, so I sewed them together into vertical rows and trimmed them to fit.  In the pictures below, you can see where I had to trim to get a nice vertical row.

It's definitely wonky!  I'm thinking about adding some of my signature applique circles.  We'll see!

I hope you like it so far!

Crisscross quilt

I watched an episode on The Quilt Show that introduced me to an improv way to make a crisscross quilt.  I think the quilter used smaller blocks than I did.  I made it with some of my hand dyed and ice-dyed fabrics and a wonderful Marcia Derse fabric called "Spotted Graffiti". Anyway, here's the quilt and the instructions.

CRISSCROSS QUILT

51” w X 59.5” h

Made in improv style, this quilt uses large and small scraps to make a striking colorful quilt.

Materials
10 to 12 different fabrics, at least large enough to cut several 10” squares

Instructions
Cut 4 different fabrics @ 10” square
Lay them right sides up and cut a diagonal line free hand starting and stopping at 1” from the corner
Cut a second diagonal line parallel to the first one and starting and stopping at 1” from the corners.  Make it slightly curved, but not super curvy.

Take one of the center pieces and rotate it from the top to the bottom of the stack
Sew the triangular pieces to the center pieces, making sure that the triangular pieces are the same fabric
Press away from the center strip

Trim to 9” square

This stack yields 4 blocks
Continue stacking 4 fabrics at a time, making sure they are mixed up and different than the first pile
Make a total of 36 blocks (9 stacks of 4 fabrics)

Cut 4 different fabrics @ 5-3/4” square
Lay them right sides up and cut a diagonal line free hand starting and stopping ¾” from the corner
Cut a second diagonal line parallel to the first one and starting and stopping at ¾” from the corner
Take one of the center pieces and rotate it from the top to the bottom of the stack
Sew the triangular pieces to the center pieces, making sure that the triangular pieces are the same fabric
Press away from the center strip
Trim to 4-3/4” square
This stack yields 4 blocks
Continue stacking 4 fabrics at a time, making sure they are mixed up and different that the first pile.
Make a total of 24 blocks (6 stacks of 4 fabrics)

Sew the top together
Lay out the squares to your liking, leaving 6 spots for the smaller squares
Use 4 of the smaller blocks to fill in the 6 empty spots
Arrange the stripes all in one direction, or in a crisscross way.
Sew the horizontal rows together and press alternating rows in alternating directions
Sew the vertical rows together and press the seams all in one direction
Baste around all of the outside edges to stabilize the seams

I found a picture on Instagram that I thought would be a fun way to use this pattern, with smaller blocks and different fabrics on each side of the center cut.  It's 9 blocks x 11 blocks.

Anyway, have fun using up your larger scraps!

Bog Coat

I recently took a class from Kathy Powell on how to make a reversible bog coat.  It was so different and so fun!

I used some gorgeous material from Marcia Derse as the outer layer and a gray and white batik for the inner layer.  I had a ton of lime green ombre fabric that I used for the 3" finishes around the neck, the sleeves and the bottom.  This loose fitting jacket was so different than any other pattern that I have sewn.  For sure, I was skeptical that it would turn out looking like something wearable.  But it was fun and entertaining to stretch my brain to make this coat.

I really like it and hope you do too!

Garden Lady #6 - part Two

This is a continuation of a previous post about the making of Garden Lady #6.

I wanted to pick the background before I made the clothes for this Garden Lady.  My Garden Lady quilts need 54" or so in length (to end up 50" L), and a lot of the material that I buy and save is one yard.  I did find a couple fabrics that fit the bill, and ended up with a fairly plain, neutral background.    I also had a lovely black mottled fabric designed by Marcia Derse.  I used this for the bottom of the background.  In order to get the right curve, I traced the shape onto freezer paper, ironed this to the back, painted the seam allowance with starch, and pressed it into place.  This was appliqued to the upper background with invisible thread and a small zig zag stitch.

I decided to collage the dress, since I've used that method for all of the other quilts in either the clothes or the background.  I drew the outline of the dress onto tear-away stabilizer and started with a hand painted fabric.  I pulled out a pile of things to add to the top and stopped for the night when most of it was covered.

                                    Yarn, Angelina fibers, antique trims, hand dyed fabric.

When I was satisfied with the toppings, I added a layer of tulle and quilted the dress in 2 shades of green rayon thread.  I like how pretty it is and am now not so sure I want to cover it up with an organza over-slip.  

What do you think?

Inserting skinny lines into wavy improv landscape type pieces

This is the 3rd post about inserting skinny lines into improv pieces.  These blocks were made with a wavy improv technique that was first taught to me by Jean Wells.

I started with 5 different fabrics to make two pieces.  Two were in shades of lime green;  one was a hand dyed army beige; one was the gold fabric, and the blue was from Marcia Derse's collection.

The first step was to cut the bottom and the next piece with the curved shape.  This was done by laying them on top of each other and cutting the curvy improv line.  After removing the pieces underneath, the pieces were sewn right sides together with a 1/8" seam and 2.0 stitch length.

The piece was pressed and the 3/4" skinny gold line was attached.

This was pressed and trimmed and the next piece was cut to match the curve.

It was sewn, pressed and trimmed, then the next piece was cut to match the curvy seam.

That piece was trimmed and the final piece was trimmed and sewn, then the whole piece was pressed and starched.

Here is the final piece, which will be trimmed when it gets added to the quilt.

The second block was made in the same manner with the same fabrics.

I hope you like this wavy improv way of making blocks with skinny inserts.

Challenge piece for the Mod Quilt Squad - Lime Twist

The newest challenge for the mod squad group was announced.  The theme is "Lime Twist".  The pieces must have lime green in them, some gold, be improv pieced, be Kintsugi inspired, and be 24" W x 48-60" H.  I pulled out blue fabrics from the Marcia Derse collection, some dyed fabric, lime green and other shades of green fabric, and two gold fabrics for the color scheme that I envisioned.

I didn't start with a design, just the black lines of the space to fill on my design board.

Then I pulled out all of my books and blogs about making skinny lines and started making improv pieces.  This is a skinny line curved technique that I found in Irene Roderick's book.  I started with two pieces of 8" x 8" fabric, and 3/4" wide strips of the gold fabric.  It seems counterintuitive that you use straight pieces for the inset curved parts, but it works!  Well, with a little steam and starch and very skinny seams.  First, I free hand cut the first curve with both the blue and green fabrics stacked right side up.

Then, I took the 3/4" gold fabric and using an 1/8" seam, sewed this to the first curved piece.

This was pressed away from the skinny strip.  I trimmed 1/4" off the skinny strip and using a 1/8" seam and LINING UP THE PREVIOUS SEAM LINE, sewed the outside piece to the skinny strip.

I pressed the seam away from the skinny strip again.  Note that the sides won't match up anymore.

I decided that one more slice was needed, so I followed the same steps as with the first insert.  This time, though, I left a slightly larger piece of the gold, maybe a 3/16" width away from the first stitching.  After it was pressed, I trimmed the pieces to be even on the sides.  I ended up with two blocks with two inserts, one ended up being 6-1/2" x 7-1/2" and the other one was 7-1/4" x 8".   So, for future reference, I'll know that the final block is indeterminate until after pressing and trimming!  And that centering the pieces gives a little bit larger end piece.

That's all for now.  I'm going to try to write a couple of blogs about making skinny inserts so that I can share the techniques with my Mod Quilt Squad.

I hope you like the pieces so far!

Elongated Hexagon - Part Two

This is a continuation of a previous post about the Elongated Hexagon quilt that I made, based on a Ricky Tims pattern.

I fussy cut out the hexagon pieces from the Marcia Derse fabric.  This is the left-over fabric - Swiss cheese from the fussy cuts!

Then I started to cut the hexagon pieces from the strip sets, all at an angle.  I marked the freezer paper template with grain line direction; both right and left.  This way of cutting the hexies left way too much fabric in the strip sets.

I decided mid-stream that I needed to cut more with the lines of the piecing. I knew if I did some of the cuts this way, I could at least sew together the left-over fabric and get more cuts out of the strip sets.  In fact, if you want to do it this way, there is very little waste.

Here is what the original design looked like on my design wall, using only the diagonal cuts.

And here is what it looked like after I changed the placement of the Marcia Derse fabric and added vertical rows of straight cut hexies.  I liked that this showed off the theme fabric better, but still showed all the strip piecing.  It's busy!  If you like color, then WOW, this little quilt has it.