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.

Inserting skinny lines - square in a square

I was asked to do a little workshop on how to insert skinny lines into quilts.  I've done a bit of it before, and wanted to include both straight line inserts and curved inserts and both of varying widths.  I took inspiration from Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, Irene Roderick, Cindy Grisdela, and Jean Wells, among others.  It seems like the super skinny lines are showing up more often in quilt shows and  that intrigued me.

I showed skinny lines inserted into curved pieces that finished about 1/8" on a previous blog.  These will be  about 1/4" inserted into a square in a square block.  I cut a wonky rectangle to start with.  To this, I sewed the 3/4" strips of gold with a 1/8" seam, pressed, and trimmed them to 1/2" from the sewn line.  I used strips about 3" wide from the lime green fabric and sewed those in the next row with 1/4" seam allowance.  

I trimmed them wonky after they were pressed, and to be 1" to 2" wide.  

The process continued with more 3/4" strips of gold, and one more row of lime green.  On one side, I inserted a strip of gold.  The piece ended up about 7-1/2" x 7-1/2", with one side wonky.  I may or may not trim this when it gets sewn into the quilt.  

I hope this helps sew skinny lines into some of your blocks.

Color Palette selection

I tried a different way of selecting a color palette for the Pickle Dish/Mariner's compass quilt.  It was a technique recommended by Jean Wells Keenan of the  The Stitchin Post.  She told us that she started with a picture or image that had a pleasing combination of colors.  Then she took that picture and made a palette of colors in the same formula as the picture.  Here's how I interpreted that idea in this quilt.

I found a picture that I liked on Pinterest.

With colored pencils, I developed a color palette and related that to a general estimate of the yardage required to get the same effect.  (It's the second set in the picture below).

Then I translated that to the pieces as I was sewing them together.  Here are the quilt pieces in progress.

I hope you can use this technique when developing your next color palette for a quilt.

Facing for art quilts - straight edges

I've referred to facing several times in my previous blogs.  And I've given credit to Jean Wells, who wrote an excellent article in her book, "Intuitive Color and Design", on how to do it.

Since one of my small quilt groups asked me to teach them how to do facings, I thought that it was high time to show you the pictures and steps.  Be prepared...this is a really long blog posting!

Allow extra on the edges
Facings take up more than 1/4" inch off the edges of your quilt top.  You have to sew the 1/4" seam, then you have to turn the edges to the back.  This takes up at least another 1/4" inch.  To allow for this, I really try hard to oversize my art quilts, then trim them to at least 1/2" from the finished edge.
Here is a picture of a quilt with the extra 1/2" all around.  (This quilt will have straight edges.  For a wavy edge, the directions are a little different).

Stabilize the edges
I use 1/8" grosgrain ribbon and stitch this down to all the edges that will be encased.  Since I like to zig zag this down, the extra 1/2" lets me do this without having problems on the edges.  Have you ever tried to zig zag right on the very edge of something?  If you have, you know that not only does the fabric try to sink into the feed dogs, but it gives you a "lettuce" edge.  That's OK if you're wanting a lettuce edge (like on a slinky skirt hem), but it's not so good on quilts that are supposed to have straight edges.   I order my ribbon from the Hairbow Center.  They carry all kinds of colors in the 1/8" size.

Here is a picture of the grosgrain ribbon pinned and stitched down.  It's pinned 1/2" in from the edge because that's how much extra I left on the quilt.

I use a 2.5 width and 2.5 length on the settings for the machine.  If you have a walking foot, I highly recommend using it for sewing down the ribbon, and for sewing down your facing.  I have found that an even feed foot isn't quite strong enough to keep all the layers moving smoothly.

Cut facings 2-1/2" wide
I always cut my facings 2-1/2" wide; the same as I would for regular binding.  Cut it on the straight of grain, unless you're trying to go around curved corner.  Press 1/4" on one long edge of the facing.

Pin it to the quilt, right sides together.  Pin the opposite side on, then lay the 3rd and 4th sides down, trimming the ends so that they're not caught in the seams.

Sew 1/4" seam all around.

Sew a diagonal line at all 4 corners and back-stitch it a couple of times.

Trim
Trim the corners.   Then trim off the extra 1/2" on all sides.

Top stitch
Smooth out the binding from the top and, sewing through the facing and the seam, top stitch close to the seam.

Leave long tails of thread so that you can pull them to the back and tie a knot.  You will find that you can't get as close to the corners on a couple of the sides.  That's OK.  Just top-stitch as far as you can.

Turn the binding to the back and push out the corners.  Make sure that the facing doesn't show on the front of the quilt.

Hand Stitch
Then press with steam and pin the binding in place.

Hand slip-stitch the facing to the back of the quilt.

Final Pressing
Give it a good steam press again and hit it with a clapper if you have one.

And there you go.

I hope this helps you sew facings onto your art quilts too.

Wavy edges in Art Quilts

I made lots of quilts in the good old days of hand piecing, hand quilting, and squaring up quilts to get nice straight edges.  I still enter competitions where wavy and curvy edges are a reason to get a ding from the judges.  They write "Edges should be straight"!  

Ah, but on art quilts, you have the freedom to do anything you want.  So, now after I square up my art quilts, I take the rotary cutter and purposely make wavy and curvy edges.  This is so freeing!

Some of the arts quilts in my nest series have traditional binding; some have facings; and some have couched fibers on the edges.  All of these edge finishing techniques work on curvy and wavy edges.   Jean Wells wrote excellent directions in her book, "Journey to Inspired Art Quilting", about how to add 1/8" grosgrain ribbon to the edges of an art quilt before you add the facing.   This is great advice, and I encourage all of you to do this to stabilize the edges on wavy and curvy art quilts. 

Just one thing that I have discovered - for me anyway - is to keep the corners pretty close to 90 degrees.  It's so much easier to turn the facings and make them look nice. 

Nest #10 "Sheer Bird" by Joanne Adams Roth

The bird and nest were drawn by Esterita Austin during a workshop on using sheer fabric.