Improv Quilt Blocks

Improv Block, month 1

In my early quilting days, I don't think I could appreciate improvisational piecing.  Maybe three or four years ago, I could admire others' work but was not interested in doing it myself.  And now, here I am giving it a whirl.

I am taking an improv block of the month class at my local quilt shop, Stitch Your Art Out.  In class, we have talked a lot about how we feel when we are doing this type of piecing, what inspires us, what processes we use to get our block together, etc.  The "gremlin" has come up often in discuss, the voice in your head that criticizes what you are doing and tries to keep you safe from making mistakes by stopping you from doing anything at all!  I am sure everyone has this gremlin voice to some degree.  I really did consciously think about what the negative and scared thoughts than ran through my head were saying to me until I took this class.  Our fearless leader, Kim, says that the gremlin often comes from a sort of childish/childlike and my gremlin does seem to bring up fears that, when I try to tell someone else about them, begin to sound silly to me, though they were perfectly legitimate in my own head. :)

Here are some common things my gremlin worries about:
wasting fabric
making mistakes
making something ugly
why I am doing something creative--what is the point
what I am doing is not original enough
what I make is not as good as the work of someone else

I have learned that if I actually try to respond to the gremlin concerns, I can begin to move through the fear of creating.  For example, when I made the block below for March, my gremlin said, "This looks like a box of crayons."  I asked my gremlin, "What's wrong with that?"  He did not have an answer.  I decided to walk away from it and see if it still bothered me after a couple of days.  It didn't.

I am also working out of a book, 15 Minutes of Play and am making more efforts to play with improv blocks.  The thing I like a lot about this book is that you are creating "made fabric" but it is then cut up into regular shapes and sashing, etc., is added, or the made fabric takes a familiar shape, like a star.  The made fabric adds depth to the piece but it is not so completely out of control that your eye doesn't know where to look.

I am hoping to do a low contrast background in the center with flowers and a bright border. You can see it starting to come together a bit here.

Do you have a gremlin?  What does yours say to you about quilting?  Have you developed a way to respond to your gremlin?

Committing to Finishing

So I made a declaration to some friends that I wanted to finish several of my quilt UFOs this summer.  By UFO, I mean something that hasn't been touched or worked on in several months/years.  I took photos of all of them that I could find and then I emailed all the photos (12 projects) to my friends.  Then I got really brave and committed to getting four (4) done this summer.  Here they are:




I made this Jelly Roll Race last summer. I have actually already gotten to work on this one--one more edge to bind and it is all set.  It will be a graduation gift for my niece.



This little top was finished a couple of years ago. I couldn't decide how to quilt it and whether to hand or machine quilt it. I had just decided on machine quilting it the other day but then realized the design I wanted to do might be easier to do by hand. So this is the next one to work on but I am still contemplating my options.



Here is my Summer Sampler quilt. I made the blocks a couple of years ago. I need to decide how I want to lay out the blocks. On point? Maybe. Sashing of some sort? Probably. But simple sashing or some kind of cool cornerstones? Probably cool cornerstones like a pinwheel. But if I put them on point then maybe no sashing.  So yeah, more thinking to do here.  I might consider a border, too.



Here is my Lotus Quilt from the book Tile Quilt Revival.   I need to make 4 more blocks (one I started but didn't finish).  I decided that I am switching to the freezerpaper and starch method instead of needleturn since I can't get the results quite the way I would like them (pieces shift and change size no matter how hard I try nor how carefully I pin).  This is time consuming and I have a bad feeling I won't actually get it done this summer.  Especially because I will probably spend all of July working on fall and spring samples for classes I will teach and a crochet design I am working on.  But maybe this can carry on into fall, if needed.

Wish me luck!

How do you manage your UFOs?  Do you have a system?

Still kicking around

Wow, this spring semester was so crazy that I felt like I was a grad student all over again and I didn't get much crafting done.  I was grateful for the semester's end!  And what did I do when the semester ended?  I got down to quilting my Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt.  I started it in January and worked steadily, finishing the top faster than anything since the Jelly Roll Race I made last summer.  It was really therapeutic!


 

 
 

 




This quilt was completed just before Memorial Day.  I love how it turned out! The quilting took a lot longer than I expected. I marked a flower petal shape in each square and going around all those curves made for slow going. Also, I was having all kinds of problems with my sewing machine and ended up quilting it with a clear plastic embroidery open toe foot, which worked out great, actually. The biggest problem I had was that my machine was possessed and kept sewing sometimes after I took my foot off the foot control.

I set myself a goal of finishing 4 UFO quilts this summer.  One is nearly completed.  Stay tuned!

Wordless Wednesday

Because who has time for words?!

Trip to Autumn House Farm

In mid-February I joined some knitter friends on a retreat at Autumn House farm just outside of Punxsutawney, PA.  My portion of the retreat was short--just Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, but I was looking forward to knitting, relaxing and meeting the sheep.

View of the farm in the early morning light

We stayed across the street in an old house with a fireplace and lots of cool antiques.

 

I got the impression that the owner, Harriet, liked to collect old clocks.

Saturday night we went out to dinner and came back to the house to knit by the fireplace.  We also visited Harriet's shop where she sells her own hand-spun, hand-dyed yarn, patterns, knitting and spinning accessories, etc.

Sunday morning we met the sheep and watched the dogs help move them around the barn.

 

And we met the many ginger-colored kitties.

 

I had never been to this part of PA before and the area and drive were really beautiful.

Quilting and Weaving Along

I have my Scrappy Trip Along top all sewn up!


 

The backing is pieced and the batting is cut so now I am ready to attempt to mark the top with a quilting design (flower petals, I think) and baste it.  The week is looking pretty busy so I will probably only get the top marked over the next several days.

The thing that has been great about this quilt is that I don't overthink it.  I do spend time thinking about it but I am not allowed to obsess over it.  Two blocks have the same center fabric next to each other?  Oh well! :)

I am taking a class at my LQS, Stitch Your Art Out, called Fearless Improv Block of the Month.  We are learning to design and piece blocks improvisationally.  It comes at just the right time for me in my quilting life, I think.  I want to enjoy quilting more and feel more free to do what I want without making all these rules up about how things have to be and not stressing if things aren't "perfect".  I can get so caught up in how not perfect I think my quilts are that I lose the fun of making them.  I am paying more attention to my thought process so I can change it.  Our fearless leader, Kim, calls the voices in our heads that tell us we can't do things our gremlins.  I am becoming more familiar with mine.




Our first project was to consider the Rail Fence block. I vaguely thought about it for a couple of weeks. One night, I sat down at my computer and googled rail fence pictures. Then I took my general impression and sketched it (there is a cool app for iPad called Paper). When I got to the stage of actually figuring out how to make my block, I really enjoyed the process of looking at the sketch and thinking how I would cut the fabrics and sew them to recreate it.

Also, there has been weaving.  I can't tell you how much I am loving the weaving.  There is something so mentally stimulating about it.  I made a set of two tea towels from the Craftsy class on weaving with Angela Tong.  This was the second lesson in the class.

 

I learned how to stripe my warp and use a warping board.  Somehow, the warp got a bit twisted which made it a pain to run the shuttle through when the reed was in the down position.  I am going to ask about it in the class and see if anyone can tell me what I am doing wrong.

 

How are your crafting projects going?  Are you confronting any gremlins?

That Weaving Stuff I Mentioned

Several weeks ago, I mentioned that I had gotten some weaving done late in 2012.  Here is what I worked on:







I purchased the Craftsy class on beginning weaving with Angela Tong.  It was a great class and really helped someone with no idea what she was doing (me!) manage to actually weave something without help.  I wove this too densely I realized after I finished it.  That whole 8 dent reed thing--I didn't understand that the 8 would refer to the threads per inch (oops!).

Yarn: scraps of Ella Rae Classic (blue) and Queensland Collection Rustic Tweed (purple)

My friend Meredith showed me how to use her amazing gizmo: the fringe twister.  Such a simple gadget and amazing at the same time. :)


 

 This is project #2.  I used sport weight this time instead of worsted.  I paid attention to how many threads per inch I should have.  The two challenges with this scarf were, 1. I made a mistake somewhere and although I allowed for shrinkage--it was still way shorter than I intended.  It is just long enough to still be a scarf for an adult.  2. Somehow the selvedges were really tight compared with the rest of the warp on the loom.  Not sure how I managed that but then I don't really know what I am doing, so I managed it pretty easily. :)

Yarn: Louet Gems Merino Sport (golden yellow) and a sport weight alpaca from my step-sister.  She has an alpaca farm and sends her fiber to a mill to be spun into yarn.  The yarn is a mix of her own animals and those of the other farmers who send their fiber in.

Thanks to Cynthia Spencer for taking great pics of the scarves one Sunday morning.