And Some Flowers

I've been thinking about some free-pieced coneflowers since the summer, but couldn't really justify starting something new then. When I realized all those word pairs I've been making belong in a border, there was a demand for something in the middle. I immediately thought of these. Thematically, they are kind of perfect. 😁

For the leaves I wanted to suggest a light, feathery texture without being too literal. I made green and white strata, sliced them up, and rotated through the layers as I sewed them together. It is a good way to generate a lot of piecing quickly. 

My plan was for the flower head to be about the same width as two leaf sections. As you can see, they are nowhere close. 😂 I think I'll build out the background around the flowers to make them fit better.

I also was planning to make chunky stems, about 3 cm/1"+, but now that i look at the picture i think a crisp skinny stem will sharpen it up quite a bit. I don't want anything to line up too rigidly, but there still has to be some definition to hold the eye. And to balance the high contrast border too.

That's the real fun of an improv approach, isn't it? Try, adjust, carry on. Enjoy the surprises along the way. ❤

Lost and Found

I just wrote that title and now I think I need to add that duo to my quilt. 🤣

My plan for this quilt was for it to be an art quilt that hangs on the wall. For like a decade now I've been expecting to transition from utility quilts to art quilts. But this week I was looking at online classes and I had a major insight. Wall quilts don't light me up. Bed quilts do. 

There's a couple reasons. First, I like working large, it's just more exciting and dramatic to me. Also, the expectation that someone may sleep under the quilt clarifies the message and the design quite a lot for me. It's like a duty of care to keep the message positive and healing. 

So as soon as I realized that I want to make a bed quilt, the design came together in a few minutes. These pairs of opposites will be the border. I only need one or two more and that's done. There's a couple I already sewed together stacked that will have to be unsewn, but that's easy at this point. 

It may sound strange to say that bed quilts are my artistic medium, but I feel so much relief when I say it that I know it's right. I'm pretty excited actually. 😂 It's good to know. 

(Oh, and no, still no sign of those Grunge fabrics btw. But maybe they are getting closer. 🤣 )

Moving Along

I've made another word pair since last time:

And I was still thinking about using the leftover crumbs in the quilt. I thought pieced hearts would be cute.

Maybe they are cute, maybe in a different project, but the crumbs feel too stingy here. I'm starting to get a sense of where I want this to go, and crumbs don't fit the narrative. Maybe some other form of improv heart will still work, we'll see. 

So now I know I don't have to worry about those, I'm hoping things will start moving again!

Left and Right

The plan was to use the green fabric for "left." But left was completely finished before I realized! Anyway, it was perfect because I had just enough of the red and green floral fabric to fill in the space as it is now. Balanced! 

I'll be honest, the flying geese are pointing in on purpose. That's my little prayer that we can all find common ground in the middle a little more often! Partisanship has become so insane, and we are all less free when we let one side tell us what to think without even listening to the other. 

And yes, federal election in Canada on September 20. Don't forget to vote! 

Ripping Seams

Yesterday I made "wrong," and today I made "right."

Wrong wiped me out, I was so tired after! Obviously the R and the G are a little challenging, but I needed the seam ripper a lot.

Then today I thought it would be easier, and it turned out to be worse. I actually had a seam allowance on the front at one point! 

So I've stopped sewing the words together while I have a think. It's probably time to improvise. 😄

Just Start

I think it was back in January that I was out running errands and I heard Katy Perry on the radio. The lyrics were such an accurate picture of recent events for me that I just started to laugh. A few days later I thought it would be a great improv quilt.

But then the obstacles started to rise. I had SO many projects, and literally no room to work. I have some great Grunge fabrics i bought for an improv art quilt, but I couldn't find them. And what was the quilt going to mean, anyway? The original spark that made me laugh was gone. I got busy on all those other projects that I finished recently. 

Only... I kept thinking about it. 😂 But what was it going to mean? If it's just trivial is it even worth the time? If I try to make it more significant is the foundation strong enough to hold up? And where tf are those Grunge fabrics? My stash is toooo big. 🙄

This August the #30DaysOfImprovQAL started, and it seemed like a really good idea. I signed up, read the materials, watched the fun videos Shannon and Amanda put on Instagram, didn't start...

...because I realized the quilt i still want to make is this one. And I still don't know where those Grunge fabrics are, so I'm just going to use what I have at hand. 

This morning i was all set to pull solids for this quilt, because it's modern and improv and most people make word quilts with solids... and i didnt even do that. No more distractions, I'm just going to start where I am and see what happens. 

What's it going to mean? Idk.

What fabrics and colours am I going to use? Idk.

What am i going to call it? Idk but not idk. 😂 Hopefully something better will emerge.

Am I going to fall flat on my face? Maybe, but you just don't know until you try, right? I can tell you one thing. It's already bigger than I planned. 😅

I keep reading that as gold instead of cold. Maybe I'll run with that later. You can see i started with a mistake in hot too, but I left it. I filled in the right side with the leftover crumbs, which is kind of slow, so I hope I haven't set a bad precedent there.

We'll just have to see where it goes!