#improv quilt

Work has been slow this year, but it means I had time to make a quilt for my friends and their brand new baby. This is my first pieced quilt and it was super fun to put together!

Also, if you need an illustrator, get in touch 

Ultra Violet quilt: Finished!

This week I finished up the quilt I started earlier this year, during the Pantone Color of the Year Quilt Challenge, hosted by Sarah SharpandRebecca Bryan. 

I had actually finished binding this one a while back, but it wasn’t straight and that was bothering me, so I took the binding off one side, trimmed it, and re-did the binding. I’m much happier with it now! (For the time being, some of the photos of that process are up on my Instagram “stories” about this quilt!) 

Quilty Details:

• * 55 x 68″ finished size
  
• * Improvisationally pieced - no templates, mostly freehand cuts with my rotary cutter
  
• * Used a variety of prints and solids, including the text prints from “First of Infinity” by Lecien fabrics 
  
• * Matchstick quilted on my domestic (that is, straight lines close together, about 1/4″ apart)
  

I’m happy that this one is done! It’s the only one that I’ll enter this year to Quiltcon. I think it will be tough competition in the improv category, as it always is. I’m not sure this one will make the cut - but regardless, I want to make the effort to try to submit something annually!

Basting the Ultra Violet quilt: I was really excited to keep working on the Ultra Violet quilt, so I basted it soon after I finished. Ollie helped me, as you can see in the pics above (he he).

I marked out a straight line across the quilt top as a starting point, and I’ll quilt straight lines from there. I’m not sure what I’ll do exactly, I’ve thought about adding some big-stitch hand quilting somewhere in there too - I’ll have to see what I’m feeling during the quilting process!

Ultra Violet quilt top: One of the bigger projects I’ve worked on over the last couple of months has a quilt top for the Pantone Color of the Year Quilt Challenge, hosted again this year by Sarah SharpandRebecca Bryan. 

This year’s Pantone colour is “Ultra Violet.” I started by pulling out most of the purple solids I had in my stash, and adding in some other colours like teal and highlighter-yellow. Then I added some black and white, including a few prints (mostly Libs Elliott,Riley Blake Basics, and First of Infinity).

I decided to go full improvised piecing on this, so made a whole bunch of half-rectangle blocks and stuck them up on my design wall. Then, I just started adding in pieces around it until I started coming up with a composition that I liked.

The result was a bit crazy - I felt it was like a whirlwind, or “maelstrom,” so that’s what I called it! I think I finished the quilt top with only hours to spare before the challenge deadline! It is about 60″ x 70″- about a large throw size.

It was a super fun project to put together. This was improv on a bigger scale than I’ve done before, which was really great!

Scrappy Log Cabin Quilt: Finished!

A couple weeks back, I finished the last stitches on binding my scrappy log cabin quilt. I started this one back in October and I’m so glad to have it done. 

It’s definitely one of my favourite quilts so far! Although it’s probably one of the more “traditional” looking quilt that I’ve made, it feels very personal to me because of all the memories I associate with the scraps I used to put it together. (One of my favourite things about using scraps!)

Quilty details:

• * About 64″ square finished size
  
• * Made of 36 improvised log cabin blocks, using all scraps, which I made one by one last fall
  
• * Backing is a Moda print - not sure which designer! (I got it from a bargain bin in a local quilt shop and I think it worked perfectly.)
  
• *Straight line quilted on my domestic with 1/2″ spacing

I left the quilt on the couch after taking photos of it, and Ollie found his nap spot for the afternoon!

Linking up with Finish it up Friday.

* * * 

Previous posts about this project:

• Quilting my scrappy log cabin quilt
• More scrappy log cabins (at 30 blocks)
• Log cabin layouts (at 16 blocks)
  
• Scrappy log cabin blocks (getting started)

KAPOWski quilt - Finished! 

This week, I finally finished a quilt that I started way back in the fall of 2016. I called this one “KAPOWski” - which was Cheryl Arkison’s suggestion - because we were joking about how the colours and design turned out feeling really 1990s and like the intro to the show, “Saved by the Bell” (which was one of my faves as a kid!) 

Quilty Details: 

• * 48″ finished size
  
• * Improv curved piecing, started during a workshop with Cheryl Arkison hosted by the Ottawa MQG
  
• * Various fabrics in Kona solids and prints including Lecien First of Infinity, Carrie Bloomston, and Anna Maria Horner’s Loominous
  
• * Backing in vintage border print fabric I found at a discount fabric shop 
  
• *Straight line quilted with a walking foot on my domestic Janome 8200 QC machine
  

I’m so glad to have this one done, after it sat around for months half-quilted. It feels like a pretty big accomplishment, in a way. It’s been a lesson for me in letting go of perfection a little bit – and accepting that not all of the things I make need to be like “show quality” or “magazine quality.”   I can just make things for fun, too!  I think I’ll keep this quilt for me!

Linking up this week again with Finish it up Friday.

* * * 

For more on this quilt, you can see previous posts here:

• * Cheryl Arkison workshop
  
• * Finished quilt top 
  
• * Basting quilt and vintage fabric 
  
• * Quilting progress