Improv Inspiration

Being inspired by the quilt bloggers posting their projects over at the AHIQ monthly link up, I got out my pink and white improv quilt again. 
It went into the UFO closet last year because the pink just became too much for me! I'm sure a little girl would love all that pink, and even though I like pink, this much pink is hard on my eyes to work on!

This quilt combines two types of blocks started in two different classes:
1) quarter log cabin blocks made in a class with Bethany Garner. The fabric pieces were cut with scissors and pieced in a free from way. 
2) strips sets made in a class with Cinzia Alloca.
This quilt layout just needs a little TLC to make some major progress, but it is competing with The Bear for time in my brain.
Suggestions are welcome!!
Hop over to the AHIQ link up and see all the wonderful improv quilts being made.

Totally in Love!

The Scrap Vortex quilt is FINISHED!  
The photos aren't great because it was late in the day and I had to fiddle with the camera's exposure settings, it was 5 degrees outside, and it was windy. But it's done!
Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways...

1) First of all, I love that it is a finished, useable quilt (instead of a UFO sitting in a closet). I am proud of my efforts to move it constantly forward to completion.

2) I love the asterisk corners and think that creative spark is growing into another whole quilt idea.

3) I love the metaphor that scrap quilts are. All those tiny bits of fabric have joined with their friends to become something amazing! That is the power of a group, and the beauty of a mosaic, with the strengths of each part contributing to the beauty of the whole.

4) I love that the quilt began with a quiltalong at Crazy Mom Quilts, and the quilting design also came from Crazy Mom Quilts! The spiral quilting is perfect for the vortex theme, and I am relieved at how flat this quilt is in spite of all those tiny pieces, bias edges, and intense quilting... there were a lot of variables to manage in this project. This is the back of the quilt, made from two pieces of yardage joined for a simple backing with two seams.

I like this terrible photo because it shows the wind and camera exposure elements I battled to get a good photo. At least I was able to get some shots before the rain started.
Ahh the trials of a quilt blogger.... LOL!

I am so excited to be able to post my finish over at the One Monthly Goal link up! Woo hoo!

Design Wall Monday - Finished Quilt Top

The Scrap Vortex is finally a quilt top!

I started this quilt in June 2015 and it has used up a ton of scraps. The piano key borders took a long time to prepare and attach, but I'm soooo happy with how it all turned out. It is rich with scrappy fabric memories and completely frenetic - just like my life! 
The quilt top measures 59" x 77".
I have a week left in April to get this quilt pin basted, quilted and bound. I feel like I'm on the amazing quilt race TV show...will she reach the finish line in time?!?!
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times. To see some amazing improv quilts, hop over to the AHIQ link up.

UFO update

April is more than half over and I am not exactly on track with my UFO goals, but am making progress in the right direction. I was hoping to have the quilt top finished by now and ready for pin basting, in order to be able to finish the quilt by the end of the month. That goal doesn't feel impossible at the moment, but we'll see what progress the next week brings.

There were 3 tasks to do:
1) The areas of the quilt top that needed to be improved (so I could like the quilt more) are now fixed. That task involved tedious unsewing and resewing, but I'm happy with the changes.

2) The scrappy piano key border strips are almost finished.


3) I made 4 scrappy asterisk blocks and they will be perfect for the cornerstone blocks at the ends of the border strips.

Now I just need some time to connect all these parts together into a quilt top!

PS... hop over the Cynthia's blog to see her fabulous colourwash scrap vortex quilt. She pieced it as a leader-ender project... just wow!
PPS... hop over to the Oh Scrap! link up for more scrappiness and thoughts about backings.

Design Wall Monday

Scrappy piano key strips are on the design wall today. These are going to be borders for the scrap vortex quilt. I am piecing the scraps on wax paper to see if I like this technique. It's keeping the strip sets perfectly even and so far, I'm really liking it. A few more sections are needed to add to the quilt top, but right now it's the perfect mindless piecing job!

To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

April's UFO

My UFO focus for April is the Scrap Vortex. This quilt was started 2 years ago and inspired by a quiltalong at Crazy Mom Quilts. It's such a fun technique for using up scraps and after teaching the improv class in Paris last month, I've been stoked about finishing this quilt.

Here are the tasks:

1) fixing the top 3 things about the quilt top that aren't quite right for my eyes.

2) piecing a scrappy border and attaching it to the quilt top. 

3) spiral quilting using the Crazy Mom Quilts tutorial. It only makes sense that since Amanda Jean started this quilt, I'd use her fabulous quilting idea too!

4) piece and add a scrappy binding. 

Can all this be done in one month? Well, my regular blog readers know that my goals usually exceed my available time.  Considering that my goal for last September took me SEVEN months to finish, I'd say I have a severe case of "delusional doability" (a perfectly coined term I learned from Elaine Therault)!!
Linky up to the April Goal link up and crossing my fingers for a finish within one month!

Scraps and Improv

I am teaching an improv piecing class in Paris (in Ontario, not France!) on Saturday and am getting all my samples out of the closet. I decided that I really wanted to have my Scrap Vortex finished to show the students. It's one of my favourite quilts and it demonstrates how you can use crumbs, scraps and letters to make an "interesting" quilt. 


I started this quilt in June 2015 and this is how it looked when it came out of the UFO closet this week.

I still loved it, and particularly loved that the 'S' in SCRAP turned out to look not as bright as the rest of the word. That's seredipidy!
However, I really wanted to have the word 'vortex' in the quilt, so I pieced the letters, surrounded them with scraps, cut the quilt top in half and inserted the vortex strip.

Here it is...
UGH!
OH NO! 
Definitely not serendipity!

The R's cannot be right above each other! That just didn't look like how I had envisioned it!




Out came the seam ripper, and the quilt top was dissected again! 
I inserted a scrappy strip between the words. 
Better.
But there are a few things that need to be changed so I can like it more. And a great border idea popped into my mind, so this project isn't close to being a finished quilt top yet! But it's ready for a road trip to Paris on Saturday!

Linking up to Cynthia's Oh Scrap! party!

Building Loving Neighbourhoods

When I was at quilt retreat, our guild president showed us how to sew improv house blocks starting with any sized square. It was a little bit scary at first since I didn't want my houses to be totally crazy looking. But every block was more fun to sew than the last. Here are some of the blocks we made at retreat from scraps of batik. Marjorie is going to turn them into a donation quilt. 

Building houses with my Singer 301 (Ethel)

When I heard that the members of the Montreal Modern Quilt Guild were making quilts to donate to the families of the victims of the Quebec City shooting, I couldn't resist participating.

The guild requested 12" house blocks. So I made a little neighbourhood using the Stash Bee tutorial (which is exactly what we learned at retreat) for improv house block construction.  My little houses started out as 6" charm squares and ended up between 4" and 5". 
9 house blocks were joined together to make this 12" neighbourhood, which is in the mail on the way to Montreal.
One little quilt block will not change the world, but it will be part of the efforts to provide more love and comfort in lives and situations where fear and darkness live. 
Linking up to the Let's Be Social party!

Quilt Canada Class #1

My first Quilt Canada class was on improvisational strip piecing and the teacher was Cinzia Alloca from Montreal. I must like improv piecing because last Quilt Canada, I took an improv class too (read about 2014's class here). Here is Cinzia showing some pieces that she is going to combine for a quilt she is working on. This is the first time I have ever worked with strip sets, and it's a whole other process than making improv quilt blocks. It's something I have never tried before.



For this class I started with the quarter log cabin blocks I made in a class I took with Bethany Garner last month. I wanted to combine these blocks with the strip sets from this improv class. I had to whip up another 2 blocks to make an even 12 blocks.

First we cut and strip pieced some sets of fabric to work with and started to play with possible layouts. It was so relaxing to piece these blocks and I loved the look of of the fabric piling up behind the needle. Don't you think it looks like ribbon candy?!? 

This is the beginning of adding strip sets to the sides, and we were encouraged to think about direction of the strips, and the widths. 

Here I am with Cinzia at my sewing machine. When she was making the rounds in the classroom and helping each student, I got a quick photo with her. 
I should also mention that even though I was worried about working with a sewing machine I didn't "know", I didn't have a single problem with this learning this Janome machine. It sewed really well for me all day and I ran it hard!

The next step was adding in the accent fabric, which for my project was lime green. But where should it go, and how much of it do you like, and do you want a strip or a small square?

So many decisions to make and it's all up to you!
I thought my project was looking way too pink, so the next strip sets I made with wider white strips and narrower pink ones.

Here is Cinzia helping me with the layout and making suggestions for improvements and additions. It was fascinating to hear her ideas and to learn how to "see" the process of building a quilt in a different way. 



Here are some of the other projects in development. It was challenging to work on layouts on the floor and I realize that a design wall is really essential when working on a quilt layout. There were some really amazing quilts being created here!

Taking a Quilt Class

Bethany Garner

It has been such a busy week that I haven't had much time for being near the computer. My local quilt guild has quilt teacher Bethany Garner here to help us celebrate the guild's 25th anniversary. It's quite an accomplishment for an organization to be so vibrant and full of exciting and creative energy after all these years! It's such an amazing group of women and I am so so lucky to have found them 22 years ago. 
I was able to take a class with Bethany on Monday called "Creative Design in Patchwork". 
As we all know, taking a class means starting a new UFO.
I started my new quilt using quarter log cabin blocks in the Gees Bend style of using only scissors (no rotary cutters or rulers) to make the blocks. The fabric choices were inspired by a backing fabric that was on my cutting mat, and the scraps and fat quarters that were hanging around. This was not at all the fabric I had intended to take to the class, but there it is, with it's bright and obnoxious orange and pink presence.
It was so fun making these blocks without caring about anything matching or worrying about what the plan for the quilt is. 

So fun until you put them on the design wall and have to actually look at them.
OMG that's bright! They're so bright they could be a night light!
Oh sheesh, there really is no plan on how to deal with these things!
I have no idea what's next. 
I guess I'll just keep making more blocks until I'm tired of them, or a plan emerges. 

Design Wall Monday

The scraps are just flying around here!
I have the letters of the second word constructed for my scrappy quilt. Did you see the first word last week?
And now here's the V O R T E X ...

If you saw my post on Wednesday about the trouble with E, I took out the orange and changed everything to the left of the letter. I am much happier with how it looks today.
The next step is to get the letters to become the same size and get them sewn together in a row. Then I will do a "rowectomy", cutting open the quilt across the middle and will transplant the vortex from the design wall into the quilt. Just call me the quilt surgeon!
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

The scrap vortex is still on the design wall. It's finally all in one piece.

There are a couple thousand bits of fabric in this masterpiece! 
I love it!
Right now it measures about 50" x 60".
I think I still want to add another word, so I might piece a few more letters this week and see if I like it even more.
And I'm piecing some scrap strips on freezer paper to make a 6" border.
To see more design wall posts, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Scrap Sewing

There isn't much to show for my efforts in the sewing room lately. What little time has been spent in there this week has resulted in a few more blocks for the scrap vortex quilt. I'm loving the two fish blocks, especially Nemo peaking out from the middle of a block.
I'll be sewing these to the right of the letter blocks and I'm close to having enough blocks to fill in the end of that section.

Design Wall Monday

The Vortex is back! This quilt started with a quiltalong over at Crazy Mom Quilts last year.


It has been aging in the UFO closet for a while. I was feeling stuck with it, like something needed to be added, but I wasn't sure what it was. I finally decided to add some letters to the quilt.

Can you guess what I'm trying to spell?






See this bin of scraps? 
It's like a quilter's paint box! 
All the colours I need are in here, and part of the fun for a scrap quilter is to dig around for just the right colour or size of piece to add. I got out one of my favourite books Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci. 



This book gives great tips on making free pieced or "liberated" letters. I decided to make the letters in black on white prints so they will hopefully stand out enough.
I will keep continue letter construction, and I also have an idea for a pieced border, so I'm happy about the direction this quilt is taking.
To see more design wall posts, hop over to Patchwork Times. No design wall link up available today :(

Who likes chaos?

I have been happily sewing more scraps into vortex blocks but my sewing room is a total disaster. I'm going to have to stop soon because the mess is getting to me, and you know "it's bad when"....
In the photo I showed on Monday, I just have all the different sized blocks stuck to the design wall, and now I have to figure out how to sew them all together somehow.
I reread Amanda Jean's week #5 lesson about vortex layouts and construction, but it all seems a bit overwhelming at the moment.
I am wondering about how to bring structure and organization to the scrappy chaos.
Should I sew it together in rows? Add sashing?  Make all the blocks up to the same size and frame them? Or join them?
Or just let it be chaos?

One Last Quilt Canada Post

I have already treated my Dad to a special meal for Father's Day, and now I'm watching PGA and FIFA while editing my Quilt Canada photos. Are you tired of hearing about the conference yet?!? As soon as I'm off the computer, I'll be back to some relaxing hand stitching. But for now... one more post about my conference experience.
I took a 2 day class on Improv Piecing with Cheryl Arkison,

Cheryl shows the quilt in her book that my
friend Barb is sewing in brown scraps!

author of A Month of Sundays. If you read my blog regularly you might remember, I won a draw for an autographed copy of her new book last year (read about it here). At that time I had just finished sewing a quilt from her first book Sunday Morning Quilts. 
I love both of these books, so it was great fun to meet Cheryl in person and learn from her for two days about improve piecing.










This is Cheryl's sampler quilt that inspired us to get sewing our scraps and try out some of the techniques of improve quilting.

Improve class Log Cabin blocks

We started with wonky log cabin blocks and that was fun. It was a good place to start since most quilters have sewn a regular log cabin block or two in their quilting history, so making an improve version was comfortable for everyone.

Improve class criss-cross blocks

Then we moved on to criss-cross blocks. 
It's funny how the electrical cord hung down the middle of the photo like another line across the blocks!

Improve class slab blocks

Then we started sewing my favorite block... "slabs". 
I have sewn these before  (click here and here to see them) and I really love this method for using up scraps. I have called it crumb piecing since I love to use up tiny little crumbs of scraps.
We also made free hand curves, stars, and anything else we were inspired to try.

One possible "down" side to improve work ... your sewing table becomes a real big mess in a hurry! There were times when I wondered what I was doing with all this mess! But then I'd look around and see that all the other quilters had the same kind of mess on their table. There is no way around it with this technique! It was a fun class with many interesting blocks sewn and a ton of creative inspiration! 
Thanks Cheryl! And thanks to your family for sharing you with the quilting world!
I will unpack my suitcases and put my blocks up on the design wall... check back tomorrow to see them.