testing improv

Just over a year ago I was sitting on the couch reading blog posts and making plans for some sewing activities to complete over a week or so I had off work coming up. Sure I had a cupboard full off incomplete projects but I was feeling like starting something new. 

Sherri Lynn Wood had put out a request for quilters to try some of the 'scores' from the book she was writing to help refine her writing, with some of these to be included in the publication. In the spirit of improv I thought 'why not?'

 Each test quilter was sent information about the score they had been asked to try as well as videos showing some of the suggested techniques and suggested creative activities to prompt. I've never really considered my self to be arty and wasn't keen on the planning sections of craft classes at school so I was surprised that I found this relaxing and fun in it's own right but I was confused as to how this would translate to a quilt. 

 When it came time for constructions I turned exclusively to my scrap boxes and cut and sewed - ruler free - for little bits each day. In the end I had a pile of sewed sections and no idea how it was going to go together - and if it did, just what it would look like.

When I lay it all out on the floor I thought that I had made the biggest mess. 

But I embraced the guidance Sherri had given us and kept sewing. And to my complete surprise it looked OK, even with sides that where wavy and a top that was not at all square. So I basted it.

It was at this point I submitted the picture of what I had made for consideration to be included in the book.

I kept quilting it and I was much, much more satisfied with it after I had done that. I love the texture of it after the quilting and I feel like it further brought the sections together. 

I felt out of my depth a lot of the time I was making this quilt and so the enjoyment of the process was heavily tempered by that so I think next time I make a quilt from one of Sherri's scores (and there most certainly will be a next time) I will be a lot more comfortable in trusting the process to come up with something I love. 

I love that each of the quilts that have and will be made from these scores will be unique to the maker. Each decision that is made makes the quilt their own. 

Sherri has more information about the book on her blog here. The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilts can be ordered here from Amazon.

...Scrappy Stars - a finished quilt

A very long time ago Rachel hosted a beginning of the year quilt along focusing on quilt made from scraps. 

I started, and finished this quilt top.
Not long after I basted and started hand quilting.

Then for some reason it sat, for ages.

Late last year I finally finished it off! It gone straight into couch rotation.

Now, finally, with the prompt of a Scraptastic link up I've blogged it. 

I find it best not to rush things. 

...2014 - FAL plans Q1

At the beginning of last year I wrote this post as well. And then made very little progress on the items for the rest of the year. You'll see most of the pictures are even the same.So I am going to try again - with hopefully some more achievable goals.

Linking up with Katy from the Littlest Thistle who is hosting the FAL this year.

1. Finish hand quilting and bind Bee {a little bit} Japanese Quilt

 2. Finish the Weekender bay for L, I've only got the outer and finishing steps to go but I should get to this one first as it was a 2012 Christmas gift!

3. DS Strips and Bricks quilting and binding

4. Giant Baby Pinwheel quilting and binding

5.Honerable mention - Subversive Swoon Valentines quilt - this one needs basting binding and quilting but I don't have the batting for it and it will get knocked off the list if it isn't finished before Valentine's day and the chances of that aren't looking good.

...Marcelle is well on the way to done

Given the scrappy nature of this quilt and the rapidly overflowing fabric cupboard I have, despite my more restrained purchases, I wanted to make this quilt entirely from stash.

I didn't quite get there - there are a few new fat 16th in there as well as the pink border but more or less it all came from the cupboard. I'm pretty please about that as a few years ago I would have found that difficult - both in terms of my confidence picking the colours/fabrics and having enough blenders to make it work. It seems I'm fond of a novelty print to the exclusion of a lot else!

I sewed the last of the borders on Saturday morning and got ready for basting. I find these things are best done quickly or they can sit in the un-quilted pile for a long time.

I pin basted to within and inch of its life - partly as I was not convinced of how flat the quilt top was and partly as I intended to free motion quilt it and I have never successfully free motion quilted anything that big.

I spent a lot of time quilting it yesterday - I find it quite addictive and calming and I had to force myself to take good ergonomic breaks and do the washing and other such mundane activities. Taking inspiration from Jess and Jeannette I've quilted each section/border a little differently. I'll be using this one, rather than hanging it on the wall so I tried to find that balance between making an interesting quilting pattern and making sure the quilt still draped nicely.

 

I've still got about a 1/4 to go, and happily a day off tomorrow because there is some race that 'stops a nation' - perfect for the last of the quilting and binding.

Linking with Penny - Thanks for hosting a great quilt along! Stop by and check it out - there are some great versions of the wonderful quilt there.

...a poke in the eye

I was all excited about marching on with the cross border after I last posted - I was still undecided about the wide un-pieced border and I decided that I would make the cross border and then see how the options looked.

Then I went to Pilates and got flicked in the eye with a resistance bad. A trip to the Eye & Ear Hospital ensued followed by 7 days of strict bed-rest to ensure the injury was not worsened. The injury, and the treatment, caused my pupils to unevenly dilate. And meant that my vision, especially fine detail, was and still is pretty blurry. 

 So Marcelle had to wait. Yesterday though I'd had enough waiting and got sewing again.

I had started cutting the background for the cross border with one eye and I finished cutting and sewing it yesterday the same way. Not recommended, but I still have all my fingertips and a new border so it wasn't all bad. 

I'm just making a final decision on the corner stones and then hopefully I can finish the top this week. Really hoping my vision will return to normal so I can baste and get to the quilting this (Melbourne Cup) weekend!

...still getting to know Marcelle

After I last posted last time we had some friends come to stay and the Quilty Cave was given over to bedroom duties. All that meant that the flying geese border didn't get cut and made until yesterday.

Like The Elven Garden I separated my four colours and made the flying geese from the warm colours and the bricks border from the cool colours. I think this works well to ensure they stand apart from each other.

I'm pondering a fabric choice for the next border now. Thoughts? I'm thinking one of these or the pink down the bottom in the more pink colourway. It's patches from Sarah Fielke's new range at Spotlight.

...more progress on the Marcelle Medallion

After I got the centre star sewn last week and added the first border I felt a little 'meh' about the colours I had chosen. In my head I had strong colours contrasting with black (where the low volume fabrics are used in the original) and on reflection I knew that the fabrics I had chosen weren't strong enough colours. 

So I started again. I used Color Scheme designer to help me clarify the colour scheme I wanted to use - especially as I am still hoping to make this one entirely from stash. 

I was still a little dubious at this point but then I added the 60 degree triangle border and I was sold on the colour scheme. 

I've added border 3 and next up are the flying geese. 

I am hoping to get these cut out tonight or tomorrow as my sewing 'cave' will be converted to a bedroom for guests next weekend so I'd like to have it sewn on this week. We'll see though - they are a funny size!

...Marcelle Medallion Quilt Along

Several months ago I bought the fist copy of this magazine because of the quilt on the cover and then later a bought this book with the pattern in it as well. 

Until last week I hadn't started it. I'm still only as far as the center and border one but we'll see how it goes. 

Thanks to Penny for the push to get started by hosting the QAL. 

...have you checked this out?

Have you checked out the Umbrella Prints Trimmings competition Pinterest board for this year?

There are heaps of inspiring projects - and if you re-pin an item from the board you will be voting in the Peoples Choice Award! Voting is open until June 5th, 12am Australian Central Standard Time.

...what's the time?

Because I save most of my sewing for the weekend I can sometimes get stuck into things and lose track of time - and not least because until tonight I didn't have a way to tell the time in the sewing room. 

But last weekend - when 6:30pm arrived without due warning I decided enough was enough and I pulled out my Trimmings pack. 

I traced numbers the numbers onto visoflix, fused them to the 'trimmimgs' and then I cut them out and fused them on to a piece of cotton/hemp fabric I had in my stash.

 I sewed a running stitch just inside the number to secure it to the background and then again just outside to define them slightly more.

I also added a small spool of thread to the centre of the clock face. The print offered a number of thin lines in one direction and I back-stitched lines perpendicular to make the 'thread'.

All done! I'm pretty happy with it!

...a roadblock - my Made to Measure Quilt

I am a prolific collector of quilt books. Can help it. I find them really inspiring. Within their pages there must be hundreds of quilts that I would like to make 'one day'. So it was no real surprise to myself that I pre-ordered Sarah Fielke's new book, Hand Quilted with Love earlier this year. The bigger surprise, at least to myself, is that I started a quilt from its pages on the day it arrived!

I had been hanging about on Twitter and Instagram in the weeks before Easter and a Quilt Along had been got up. I got sucked in - a combination of inspired, Easter weekend and a cupboard full of fabric.

The pictures show the medallion quilt growingv.

And stopping right as it reached the edge of my bed.

There are two more borders to grow and I have hit a roadblock.

See I'm not confident in choosing colour scheme when it comes to a scrappy many fabric quilt like this one. So armed with a desire to start right now I decided to work from what I had. Where there was pink in Sarah's I went with that, black I chose a black print. my shades are very different and consequently so is the whole look but it gave me some structure to my fabric choices.

 

It was working until I got to the yellow in the second to final HST/Flying Geese border. All the yellows I had a brown base. I went ahead and used it, but my slowing work rate should have warned me that I wasn't sold on the look.

I think that to continue with a yellow I need a green-y yellow but there are none of them in my stash and I can't find any in the stores either.  It has been suggested that I substitute turquoise (picking up some hints of colour in earlier fabrics).

I'll need to hunt some out but the theory has promise, I think. Opinions?

...working out a new plan

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...is this for real?

I hope not!

Oh no, it looks like it might be. 

...a year of finishes - update

The biggest finishes from the list were't exactly a work in progress at the time of writing to post but they were started and finished and gifted...

1. Quilt and bind the Scrappy Stars Quilt (hand quilting currently in progress) - still going on this one - I have it sitting on the end of the couch I sit on of an evening and have been doing a hexagon or a star from time to time. I think we will call this one progressing? 

2. Quilt and bind my Bee a Little Bit Japanese Quilt (hand quilting in progress) - This one is also sitting on the end of the same couch - but under the other one so no progress and won't be I don't think until the other is finished. 

 

3. Baste, quilt and bind the Valentines Swoon - I have backing fabric for this one now that is almost together. I had hoped for a Valentine's finish for this one but that seems no to have been. 

4. Finish the Weekender Bags - one down and one to do. The recipient is most likely visiting soon so that should be fully completed in a week or two. 

5. Finish quilting the baby pinwheel quilt - no progress

6. Finish the DS Quilts FMQ sample quilt. - no progress

7. Baste, quilt and bind the 'Spring, Just Because' quilt - I'm looking for the right backing for this one that is proving more difficult than I expected!