Why Improv?

Organic

"Organic" really is the word that sums up improv style to me. I like the way it looks -- every piece has its own character, just as in real life. I like the method, working with materials that are already on hand, just as Mother Nature does. Adapting to local conditions, and letting them determine some of the result.

But, that doesn't mean there isn't a plan. A seed intends to be a flower. It may not know exactly how it's going to be a flower, but that's the goal.

And if things don't exactly work out, that's ok too! Improv provides the opportunity to experiment and try new ideas in a low-risk environment. It's just old scraps.

For my quilt, though, I already have a general idea of the final layout, the colour scheme, what it's going to say, and what the individual elements are likely to be. I never have a shortage of ideas! And since I have the idea, I think it's best to honour it, while staying open to change as it develops.

Personally, I think there must be an idea before anything can come to life, and the timing of the idea -- before or during production -- is not important. Sometimes I think that improv is a little bit of smoke and mirrors. You're never really creating something out of nothing. Jazz musicians improvise on an existing tune. Improv theatre starts with an initial premise, and often follows a rough plot as well.

The challenge, and the benefit, is in figuring out how to get there. You're solving problems, you're developing new techniques, or using old ones in new ways. It's very much a "flow" experience. I'm feeling more confident and relaxed about all my projects, not just this one.

And, I can definitely say that it stimulates creativity! I've been working on several different projects this past week, including a completely new one that is not improv at all. I'm glad I was able to try out these flowers before the Ad Hoc Improv Quilters link up ends. Check out everyone else's posts here!

Letters, Leaders & Enders

Here's a shot of our maples in the late day sun last week. It was windy, which is why it's a little blurry. This week it's been either sunny and windy, or dark and rainy, so this is the best I've been able to do. This year their colour has been the best ever, which I think is partly due to the dry summer. But mainly I think it's because they are getting a lot more light since we cut down the ash trees that were damaged in the 2013 ice storm.

The moon was up early too:

Yesterday it was really dark all day, so I was happy to be inside and working on my next batch of improv letters:

I was going to put them together today, but here I am blogging instead, so it may not happen!

I also decided this week to see if I can add a leaders & enders project into the mix. Bonnie Hunter has a good description of the process here. I've avoided an L&E project up until now, because I didn't want to sacrifice the quality of my main piece by being distracted by a second project. But with all the short seams in this project (and also in My Country House), I've been using up a lot of thread anchors, so I thought I would try it.

For about an hour I wondered which new project I could start that would be appropriate, until I remembered my hourglass quilt! I ran out of steam on this project in early 2014, because it is super boring. But, boring is perfect for an L&E project, because I don't want to have to think about it at all.

I still need at least 300 more hourglasses, and all the fabrics are already cut and marked. I set up the rest of my lights and darks, right sides together, and piled them up:

I don't know how many are in there, but it is 4.5" tall!

So, can I improv and sew leaders and enders at the same time? Yes! In fact, with all the small fiddly seams on these letters, it was a relief to put in an hourglass set and just rip down the middle of that. Somehow it feels more balanced. At the end of the day I had the first two seams done...

...on 23 hourglass sets (which will be 46 hourglass blocks). It feels really good to get that project moving again. Hopefully this will be a painless way to eat up a lot of the preliminary work on this project.

I admit I've been having one of those "what was I thinking?" moments, about my decision to make this a queen-size quilt. Sure, the hourglasses are easy to make, but I really didn't think much about how long it would take to sew them all together as well. Now I'm starting to think about that too! Hopefully I can do at least some of that in L&E fashion as well. I'll keep you posted!

A Few Words

Following on from last time, I've managed to join up my first batch of letters into words:

The missing first word is "believe," which will be the next thing to sew. This is post #300 today, and the quote is from the Bob Ross Remix video that I shared in post #100. There is plenty of inspiration in that video, so yes, this is just the beginning!

Now that I'm starting to understand the strategies for making the letters and joining them up, it's moving along pretty quickly.

Last time I was worried about the legibility of the c's, u's and i's,

which came from these fabrics.

When I looked at them again I decided that there wasn't enough contrast in the two c's and one i, so I made new ones. Plus, I thought the c's should be bigger to go with those large a's:

The old c's are on the left there, and the new c is sewn in.

It was unplanned, but lucky, that I used the same background fabric for many of the letters that went together in the same word, like the h, a, and n. I think it is easier to read, so I'll remember it for the rest of the quilt. The first "happy accident" of many, hopefully!

Starting to Improv

In early September I was full of enthusiasm for Ann and Kaja's new Improv Quilting link up. I knew immediately that I wanted to make one of those improv word quilts, and the whole concept came together quickly. But then I didn't think I would have time for it, so I pushed it to the back of my mind.

This week I had scheduled the completion of that star quilt from last week, which I believe is now my oldest UFO, but I just couldn't face it. I pulled out my scrap box instead and decided today I would do something totally new. With my oldest fabrics!

I had no idea what was in the box. A few years ago I planned to keep neat, pre-cut 2.5" strips, hence the label. But I gave up on that eventually. So it was a little exciting to open the box and see what was in there!

Plus, I recently pulled all the leftover fabrics from Circa 1998 (when I was considering making it larger!). So, I'm going to supplement with them, too.

There are a few books out there on how to sew improv letters and words, but I figured I could just wing it. I chose a light green/dark green colour scheme, which I hoped would be forgiving, and a less important part of the quilt to practice on.

"t" seemed like a straightforward letter to start with. I just jumped in, cut some strips and sewed them up!

In general, I kept the thickness of the letters to around 1/4" to 3/8". I want to keep the whole thing wall-sized, and there will be a lot to fit in! As I progressed I realized that these first t's are a little large, but they will be easy to cut down.

My only plan was to start with the easy letters and progress to the trickier ones. "o" seemed like a good letter to do next, and these circular patterns felt appropriate.

I discovered that a log cabin style of strip piecing works well for making letters. It's the same technique that I used here for my snowman quilt, only these strips are narrower at around 3/4".

I cut almost everything with the rotary cutter, because it's easier, and a ruler, because I want to keep my fingers! But I didn't worry about perfectly even cuts.

I may or may not round off the o's later. I'll see how it looks as I progress.

"c," "u" and "i" are also all pretty straightforward. I'm not so sure about these fabrics, though! We'll see how they look when they are sewn in.

"h" and "n" are almost the same shape. I used the nearly solid dark green (leftover binding strips)...

...for the tiny triangles that round off the arcs. They had to be well defined, so the solid was safer than a print there.

With just "d" and "a" left, I forgot about the camera and focused on the construction. No music on today! It went pretty smoothly, and I only needed the seam ripper once (on an "a").

I was determined to get at least one word done. Ta da!

Except "y," all the remaining letters are done, so hopefully I can put them together next time. It will be interesting to see how big it is. I really have no idea!

I knew that I would like improv sewing, and I do. I was afraid that I might never go back to regular sewing, but I don't think I'm in danger of that...yet.

Goofy Fun

...West Covinaaaa...

Did you see the series premiere of Crazy Ex Girlfriend this week? Love it! I would not have watched it if I'd known it was a musical, but I'm glad I didn't know. When that first song came out of left field, I was already hooked. It is so well done, and the lead actor Rachel Bloom just owns it.

A workaholic who moves to California is a character I found easy to relate to. :D Now I keep singing that song!

Otherwise, I'm still in a "get it done" frame of mind, so I pulled out another UFO this week. The first block has been finished for quite a while:

Ack, since June 2014! Longer than I thought. Today I finished up the remaining seven yellow stars, which made me think of the Pleiades (Seven Sisters). I tried to lay it out, but I don't know how successful it was. Anyway, the real experiment will be the setting, so I'm keen to get the red parts done so I can move on to the next phase. Onwards!

Country Cat

Here's a nice, peaceful cat, just minding his own business.

Or is he?

This is the third applique block from Lynette Anderson's My Country House. Another ambiguous one!

In Anderson's design the cat is looking a little away from the bird. In my experience, when a cat suddenly turns his back to wash an itch, that is when he is deciding if today is the day that he will finally eat you.

So I thought it might be friendlier if the cat was turned towards the bird. What do you think?

Cats always seem to have an ulterior motive.

In the photo you can also see my trusty bamboo background fabric, and the dark pink flowers are a weed that pops up between our patio stones every summer. This spray hung over my "photo shoot" in a convenient way.

Ten days ago it was still hot and humid outside when I photographed the first two Country Critter blocks. This morning I had to put on an extra fleecy layer, because it was only 8 C (46 F). Suddenly I'm in the mood for warm, cozy projects! (And carbohydrates...)

Hen Party Flimsy

Hen-rietta says hurrah!

The third entry in my Friday Fall Flimsy parade is Hen Party. I started this in 2012, and it sat in a box for the next three years while I struggled with the border. I thought that I was struggling with how to quilt it, but over the summer I realized that my border design was the problem. It was too stiff and formal for the scrappy centre blocks. So I simplified it, and now it's done:

Hen Party flimsy, 60" x 60"

Hurrah! I don't think I've given enough credit to simple borders like this. They really do give a clean, satisfying finish.

Looking back at my explanation of the border three years ago, it is easy to see, with hindsight, that I was trying too hard. Square peg, round hole, etc. But don't worry, I have another use for those seminole borders!

Also looking back, I noticed that I didn't give many close ups of the blocks. I'm quite fond of Hen-rietta there at the top of the page, but I think this big guy is my favourite:

He barely fits in the 6" block. There's also a happy couple:

And a few eggs, of course:

The new border has some chicken wire, and chicks on the loose:

The blue hen is the state bird of Delaware, apparently. If you were wondering!

Those peeping chicks in the border must have escaped through this hole:

So, it feels really good to get that one moved off the shelf, and onto the quilting pile. I still would like to clean out a few more, but I'll have to see how that goes. Plenty to do!

Country Critters

I apologize, I was unable to resist that title!

Here are the first two applique blocks from the 2015 BOM for The Quilt Show, Lynette Anderson's My Country House. Month 5 was called "Naughty Fox," but mine is a grey coyote instead:

A couple of winters ago we had a coyote right here in our suburban backyard. We have foxes too, but design-wise I prefer the silver grey coyote. Coyotes are controversial here in Toronto, but the consensus is that they are here to stay. Anderson's quilt block is a little ambiguous. Are the chicken and coyote friends? Or is the chicken chasing the coyote away?

Month 6 is "Rabbit Love:"

Since my version is 3/4 scale, and all the critters are felted wool, I have been stripping down some of the details in each block. The original design has an embroidered heart on one of the rabbits. I stitched it, but then took it out again. It felt cluttered, maybe due to the busy, aqua rose background fabric. I love that fabric! I remember buying a lot of it for almost nothing in the 90s, at the same time that I bought all the pink and yellow fabrics for Circa 1998. "That will be useful," I thought. But I never thought it would take this long to use it!

But anyway, since the background is so strong I decided to fill in the leaves so they would show up from a distance:

Mary Corbet posted her video for Raised Fishbone Stitch a while ago, and I have been looking for a chance to try it ever since. It is fun and not hard to do, although I probably should have used a hoop. I kept the stitches a little separated since the fabric is lightweight, and because I wanted to make the whole leaf with one length of floss (almost a yard -- 90 cm).

Wool applique really is addictive, and I have enjoyed making these blocks. They were only a couple of days each. That's a good thing, since there is still much more to do!

Circa 1998

The second of my Friday Fall Flimsy parade is actually the first flimsy I ever finished, Circa 1998. It has been packed away since then with the vague intention of using it some day for free motion quilting practice. When I had to move everything after our spring flood, all the boxes on the bottom ended up on the top, exposing the sordid underbelly of my early quilt experiments:

Not too bad from a distance, but I can tell you that pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong on this quilt! Even when I started starting quilts in the late 70s, my feeling was that if I could set in a sleeve, sewing a quilt would be a piece of cake. So I had no lessons. How hard could it be? But, as most of you know, putting a quilt together takes a lot more precision than sewing clothes.

Living in California in the mid to late 90s, I started this, my third attempt at quilting, with a collection of small scale yellow and pink florals. Every fabric is a floral. Some are from proper quilt shops, but many were very cheap fabrics from Joann's.

Mistake #1: I didn't pre-wash the fabrics.

Mistake #2: I used a steam iron to press the blocks as I worked. Imagine my dismay when some fabrics literally shrank before my eyes under the iron! But not all of them, of course. So none of the pieces, or finished stars, were the same size. But, that was a problem even before I ironed anything, because...

Mistake #3: I didn't know to add extra seam allowance for rotary cut triangles. So none of the triangles fit properly, and some of the seam allowances are very scant. It is amazing that most of the stars look as good as they do.

Mistake #4: I took "scrappy" too far:

For the most part I think I had a good understanding of value, and these really wild blocks were deliberately wild. But, I realized that I was going to run out of my first sashing fabric (seen here on the top and right side). So I decided to make the sashings scrappy too. But, I couldn't find that same yellow, and I ended up with four different yellows in the sashings. The disaster was spreading, and I couldn't go back, because...

Mistake #5: I was attaching the sashings as I went along. This was really an attempt to correct Mistakes 1 through 3. Since all the blocks were different sizes, I reasoned that I could adjust the width of the sashings to even them up again. Which kind of worked, because the quilt is almost exactly 72.5" square. But most of the joins look like this:

Yeah. You know that quilt judge criticism, "straight lines should be straight?" Not so much:

There was a plan to add a Flying Geese border, but it was all too, too much at that point. Like Kenny says,

You have to know when to hold 'em

Know when to fold 'em

Know when to walk away, and

Know when to run!

I guess I'm finally ready to improve my free motion quilting, so the plan this fall is to get this basted and least partially quilted. It will be a good warm up for the others!

Collector Flimsy

Here's the first Friday flimsy from the sewing I did over the summer. Collector is finally sewn together!

At 77" x 59", it barely fits on my "design wall" (two Ikea wardrobes and a flannel sheet). I laid it out horizontally rather than vertically because it is most likely to be used as a throw on the sofa. I am glad that I didn't make it 77" square like I originally planned! It is plenty big now.

Except the backgrounds and setting triangles, all the fabrics are different.

My mom noticed that the kitties are eyeing the fish!

The layout took me a full day, it was quite a puzzle. The original design by Cosabeth Parriaud in Quiltmania had alternating stars and squares in the white blocks. When I reduced the size I had more squares than stars, so I decided to scatter the stars along the diagonal in a hopefully loose and creative way. Plus, I wanted it to be lighter in the middle, and I had to balance out the really strong prints like those three large circles. Then, when I started taking photos, I noticed that the blue prints really pop, so I had to balance them too. But, I got there in the end, and I was glad to get them numbered and down off the wall! The good thing about a design wall that has to come down at the end of the day, is that it forces you to make decisions. No dithering!

I took my time sewing it together so that everything stayed in order. Probably 75% of the points on the stars are a little cut off, but after all this, I am perfectly fine with that! I think the problem was with the way I trimmed the flying geese units, so I'll remember that for the next one. It's not very noticeable anyway:

When I pulled this project out again last spring, and I saw how much black it had, I thought to myself, "Ugh, I am so over black!" My Sedona Star colourway also had a lot of black, and they were designed at around the same time. I felt like my taste had evolved since then.

But, now that it is all together, I can see that the original concept paid off. I wanted it to sparkle, and it really does. That's from all the high contrast prints, on top of the high contrast design. So, will Sedona Star 2.0 still be black? Yes it will. And sparkly too. :)

Otherwise, it's just fun to remember where and why I bought all the fabrics in the quilt. Many of the darks, like the strawberries, were bought for this quilt, because my stash was low on them. But these tiny red hearts...

...were actually bought for Sweet Hearts, a long, long time ago. The sunflower prints are even older:

Remember Kaffe Fassett's first quilting book, before he started designing quilt fabric? I was very inspired by that red diamond quilt with the sunflower fabric, and bought mine around then. I owe a lot of my inspiration to Fassett, first as a knitter and now as a quilter. And of course, there's a heck of a lot of Kaffe fabrics in this quilt too.

So that's done and dusted. The back is pieced and ready to go, and now it's waiting for its turn to be quilted. It feels good to get one of these old projects done, and it is nice when the theory works out too!