Yes, I have made some good progress and I really like the way it is turning out. This piece is approximately 24.5 w x 17.25 tall. I have some sewing to do before it can be considered large enough for a donation quilt. Still, I really like it and it is shaping up nicely.
I am still concerned I won’t have enough scraps to make it large enough. I am trying not to worry about it. Sometimes I can’t help it.
It’s been a few weeks since I talked about this piece. The black pieces are getting larger and my scrap bin is getting emptier.
This is a lot more active than the grey, which you will see in a few days. Those stripes really make this piece dynamic. I think it needs some space for the eye to rest, though. I’ll have to work on that.
Because it can’t really be helped, I have started the Improv color quilts for the black-grey-brown scrap drawer. These miscellaneous pieces will end up being two donation quilts at some point in the Color Improv series.
Ignore the pink and grey 16 patch at the top. Design wall space is at a premium these days.
As you can see I have a lot of black pieces from working on the black strip donation blocks. There is also a slowly growing grey piece that I think has promise. One thing I notice about it is that most of it is made up of squares and rectangles.
I am not sure if I’ll have enough to make two whole quilts, but we will see.
As you have seen when I have made other Color Strip donation tops, they have been followed by an improv version. I have been putting a few pieces together from the black/grey/brown (mostly black and grey) scrap bin, but it isn’t going well.
Leftovers from black/grey strip quilts
Well, I have made chunks of improvisationally pieced fabric, but mostly they are unsatisfactory. Also, I am not sure if I have enough small scraps to make three quilts. I also am not sure I want to combine the three colors into one quilt.
The grey piece looks really good and I don’t really want to ruin it. The others are meh.
I am tempted to bring them to the guild and see who wants to work on them.
This quilt has been on my mind since I finished “The Tarts Come to Tea.” It is another quilt in an ongoing, though dormant, series of quilts using novelty fabrics, applique’ and improvisational design.
Most of this design is comprised of piecing and applique’. We used far fewer prints in this piece than in the previous quilts in the series. Some of the flowers were cut out of fabrics, broderie perse style. We used them instead of drawing the flowers and recreating them out of fabric. We did use some florals as sashing and spacing pieces as well.
He Tried: Pitcher of Tulips
This is the fourth in the series. Her Eyes Were Bigger Than Her Stomach, the first in the series, was a bit more chaotic than She Had to Have Her Latte. “He Tried” used many fewer novelty fabrics than “Latte“, which was an evolution of design choices in the series. The design required more drawings than the others in the series. I was very pleased with the overall design.
I did a number of the drawings and I was pleased with how well they came out. I was especially pleased with the pitcher of tulips.
He Tried: Star Flowers
I am also pretty pleased with this vase of Star Flowers. I thought putting the star-like shape on top of a circle was a brilliant bit of design work.
I started this with TFQ during a visit to her in Seattle. Most of the fabrics were hers. We didn’t finish it and I don’t know where this quilt top ended up. I think this is why I have been thinking about it. As I said, I like the design, so I am thinking of remaking it. I am NOT thinking of quilting it myself like I did the Tarts Come to Tea.
My Dad has always been a fisherman. He taught me to fish. He still fishes whenever he can, which is often since he retired. I associate fish with him. Every time I see fish fabric, I think of my Dad.
This quilt is in my gallery, but I made it before I started this blog. I never wrote about it in the way I write about other quilts I have made.
Friday Fishwrap detail
Soonish after I bought my Janome MC 9000, in about 1997, I made a quilt for my Dad. I bought some novelty fabrics with fish on them and made a quilt using improv techniques.
One of the reasons I bought the Janome MC 9000 was so I could do machine quilting (shocking, I know). I did machine quilt this quilt. I used an eyelet stitch. That means, I sewed little circles all over the quilt. I chose this stitch, because straight quilting all over the was even too much at that time. I should have known machine quilting wasn’t for me. 🙂
I called this quilt Friday Fishwrap because of some of the fabric I found, which was fish on newsprint. It’s shown on the top of the fabric above.
Since making this quilt, I have made two sets of pillowcases for my Dad. I made the first set a few years ago, in 2015, when my Dad retired. The other set I made this year. They kind of go with the quilt.
I finished another old project. As mentioned, I started this project in 2015, so it is only eight years old. Still, old enough to get on my nerves.
Someone compared my dislike of UFOs to someone I really don’t like who has no UFOs. That annoyed me, because I don’t think I am like her at all. I just don’t find that **my** projects improve by sitting around. I can’t imagine never having any UFOs, but I think they will be projects for which I have cut fabric, but not started sewing. Once I start sewing, it is pretty easy to continue.
Finished: BAMQG IRR (back)
I zoomed through the binding on this quilt. Using good fabric really helps. I was pleased I remembered not to use a batik in the binding! I didn’t expect to finish it so quickly, but it went really fast.
This is another quilt that I had returned to me for finishing. This has been a long time in coming. The start of the project was in 2015! I know Rhonda, who was also in my group, was working on hers recently as well.
I probably won’t keep this one, but for the moment I don’t have a recipient. I’ll need to check my Niece-phews list and see if it would be appropriate for anyone on it. I have an idea, but would need to make another for a sibling.
BAMQG IRR back
I remember my excitement at using the Queen Street fabric in this quilt. I think the solid turquoise dominates more that Queen Street, though the Philip Jacobs shell fabric is no slouch either.
Queen Street really shines on the back. You can see all the prints, but they aren’t highlighted by piecing.
I may not have mentioned that I ripped out all of the Big Stitch quilting on this project. I am preparing it to go to Colleen.
To do so, I had to find some fabric for the binding. I wanted the main turquoise used for the background. I couldn’t find it anywhere.
BAMQG IRR Corner with possible binding
I did find a slightly darker solid turquoise that I think will frame the piece better than the same color. I know the differentiation is hard to see, but I think you can see that the slight difference looks good for the binding.
I still haven’t done anything with the bits and bobs included by the others who worked on it.
One of the good things about writing my 26 Projects posts is that I sometimes find projects I forgot to write about. This is one of those times.
Yellow Improv Donation Top
I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about the Yellow Improv donation quilt. Yes! I finished it. I was super happy to do so. Peggy already has it and I think someone already decided to quilt it.
I am not fond of those big chunks on the left, but I used every yellow scrap I had so I had to get some yardage out to use.
The piece turned out ok. I am not a huge fan of yellow. Still, I am glad I did it.
Mary and I did finish the top at Sew Day. I brought it home to make a back and will be handing it in today at the meeting.
I am pleased with how this came out. The ugly bits we started with turned into a really great quilt. It isn’t made from the colors I would normally use, but I am pleased with the result.
I am also pleased with how many of the orphan blocks and chunks we were able to use up overall during Sew Day. Sadly, none of the shards I brought were used. There is always next time.
Mary wants to do another with me next time, which I think will be great fun.
Cathy went straight to work almost as soon as we arrived. She brought some of her Pointillist Palette chunks to work with.
I keep looking at this one and seeing different things.
It is great to see other people’s work in the quilts. Two of my donation blocks were included. Cathy also used Joelle’s word chunk from a previous swap.
I finished cutting out the Friesan pouch at Sew Day and had an hour until it was over. I could have left, but instead Mary C and I decided to work together to make another donation quilt top in an hour. It was a charity Sew Day after all and both of us had been working on our own projects.
Sew Day Donation Top start
We used some fabric from one of the first retreats that had been sewn together into a block of rectangles. It was not very attractive.
The first thing we did was to cut it in half and they cut the halves on the diagonal so we could insert some strips and break up the parts that were unattractive.
Sew Day Donation top 1st steps
Mary C had some strips and strips sets leftover from a quilt she had just finished that we ransacked to make the improvements.
I selected some grey from the abundance of solids that Peggy has and we used that color to fill in other places.
Adding the seafoam green strips REALLY helped that rectangle go from unattractive to attractive. The addition also lightened up the piece.
To make the two halves large enough, we added the strip set and sewed the pieces together.
Green ‘bird’ block
Brown ‘bird’ block
We decided we wanted to use the ‘bird’ blocks as well. They were mostly made from the same fabrics, so they fit in well. I had to build up the green block, which was not nearly square.
Brown ‘bird’ chunk
Mary sewed the brown bird into a large-ish chunk with the intention of putting on the bottom of the piece. I thought it came out well.
Green bird block built-up
While she did that, I built up the green bird block into a shape we could use. The green strip along the bottom allows that darker green and orange section to float a bit which was a happy accident.
Sew Day Donation Top in process
Eventually we ended up with several large chunks. We wanted to add those half circle pieces, which took a bit of time to work out.
In this endeavor, Mary did the sewing and some ironing while I trimmed, pressed, matched fabrics, cut strips and brought her stuff to sew. We had to make little bits to allow us to fit the chunks together. There is a freedom in this kind of improv quilt. I happily hacked off pieces of the blocks and chunks to make them fit.
