The Ad Hoc Improv Quilters link up is on again! Like Audrey, this week I have been diligently sewing the improv quilt I started in November. I finished the flimsy today!
At about 86" x 93" (218 x 236 cm), the darn thing queen size quilt is too big to photograph in one piece. This is almost all of the centre:
Modern Utility Quilt #1, "Picnic"
And this is the border fabric I chose:
The white dots are 1" (2.5 cm). I was thrilled to find something that matched the colour and scale of the blocks so well! The fabric is a Riley Blake wide back, which conveniently let me cut the borders in one piece. And it will conveniently be the back, too. After much thought, I decided that the most forgiving way to cut and sew the border would be to have about 3/4 of a dot showing on the inside and outside edges.
Since the quilt is "improv," I was unsure if I should sew the blocks with matched corners. At first I thought I wouldn't worry about it. But then I decided that I would quilt it myself on my home machine. So I thought it would be better to match the corners, spin the seam allowances on the back, and reduce the bulk in the corners.
In December I finally bought Sujata Shah's book Cultural Fusion Quilts. This quilt is inspired by the "Windmills" quilt in that book, although I see now there are quite a few differences in mine. But, Shah also matches the corners on her blocks!
I know most of my regular readers bought the book long before me, but if you haven't, you should! It is excellent, and I have more projects planned that are inspired by Shah's techniques.
So, this is my first improv flimsy, and my first bed-sized flimsy! To read all past and future posts about this quilt, please click here.
I do plan to quilt it myself, but I have many others to get through first, so it likely won't be until the fall. After my big "scope creep" insight during Allietare, I've simplified my plans for the improv letters that I made last fall. At some point I'll get back to those, and I have a couple more ideas that I'd like to get started. Right now, though, I am quilting Mod Trips, and then I really will finish Allietare.
In the meantime, check out all the other great posts at the AHIQ link up here. I highly recommend Cathy Perlmutter's post, which you can read here. If you are wondering how to get started with improv, Cathy will get you going! Or at least, laughing. :D
All those Allietare Week 4 sets that took me so long to make, will be used to make black star blocks. Here are my 25 sets, laid out and ready for their centres:
Bonnie Hunter's instructions call for 4" squares of our gold fabrics in the centre. I decided to make 4" gold stars instead:
My theory was that with the large variety of gold, taupe and brown fabrics that I've been using, sewing them into stars with a consistent background would give them some uniformity, and hopefully a little pizazz too!
Some of them are quite a bit darker than I expected.
It's funny how my camera sees those blues differently on different days! Anyway, some of these stars are a little risky...
...but I hope they'll be fine in the end!
Now the layout for the 25 star blocks is also done:
It is all darker than I expected, but....I think once the blocks are all sewn together the blues will tie in well to the blue in the red blocks. In any case, I'm not changing my mind now!
I think sewing them together will keep me busy for a while. :D
And today I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times. Click here to see what everyone else is up to!
Today I have a choice of musical accompaniment for you! Vintage:
Or new:
Cline's voice is just liquid, but personally I think the second track is a good cure for the first! It's not healthy to spend too much time that blue. :D
But, why am I writing about cheating today? Because I've done a lot of things that aren't Allietare, that's why!
It started with those Hourglass leaders and enders. I forgot how long it takes to prep them for sewing! With the first step done, now I have to cut them apart, iron them open, and draw the line for the second step...
...300 150 times. (300 blocks, 150 sets.) And then I realized that I should keep up with the final cut and iron too...
...so I don't have it all left to do at the end. So, the leaders and enders did get me a little sidetracked, and they're not quite as unobtrusive as I first thought!
To clear my head, I sewed four more rows on Aloha Kisses:
Then I thought that if I'm going to cheat on Allietare, I should do something that really needs to be done. So I finally sandwiched and pin basted Mod Trips:
That's a very traditional back for a modern quilt! I was going to make a pieced back for it, but when the mood struck me to baste it, I didn't want to stop and make the back. So this is a wide back that I bought for something else. Now I know that if I have a specific desire for a pieced back, I should make it at the same time as the front!
AHIQ is next week again, so I've also been making a push on the "modern utility quilt" I started in November:
I am definitely naming this one "Picnic." This week I joined the rows in pairs. Then I just have to sew together the pairs, and add the border.
Next, while I was working on Allietare in December, I decided to join in my guild's Crayon Challenge. This is the crayon I got:
Long time readers know that I have a blindspot in the fabric store when it comes to purple, and I have hardly any in my stash! But, it was a good excuse to shop. The idea of the challenge is to use a wide range of values in your colour. These finally arrived this week:
They are gorgeous! I already have all the blocks made, and the layout finalized. Now I'm afraid that's the last you'll see of it until after the last guild meeting in May.
I also received my Kaffe border fabrics for Allietare. They are gorgeous too! In fact, I like them so much that I decided to make the borders wider, and cut a row of blocks. Instead of a 5 x 6 layout of the black star blocks, I cut it down to 5 x 5. Now I only need 25 black star blocks, and 16 red blocks.
Reducing the number of blocks, however, has not saved time. I felt it would be a good opportunity to "optimize" the blocks, and make sure that my most favourite fabrics stayed in the quilt. The red blocks went back on the wall:
The four finished blocks are on the left, and I chose my favourite pieces for the last 12 on the right.
I also had to optimize the fabrics for the black star blocks. It turned out that most of the Week 4 sections with blue backgrounds, like this...
...were the ones that didn't make it into the quilt. Now that the mystery has been revealed, I see that the white backgrounds work better there. So that is one advantage of being slow!
Now, all the Week 4 sets are done:
Next week I will finally get to the layout of the black star blocks. I'm hoping that once all the decisions are made, it will go fast from there!
I certainly recognize that all this fiddling around with the colours and layout slows down the finishes. But, I have also realized that the opportunity to play with the colours and patterns is the main appeal of quilting for me. So as the saying goes, I'll keep "following my bliss!"
