Oh, Fransson!

Project Improv Quilt: Bound and Washed

Before I talk about this quilt, I want to thanks you for all the Potholder and Birch Quilt love!  I should be able to do a tutorial for the potholders within the next week or so. 

At long last!  The binding is finished and the quilt is washed and packed in a box.  This is the quilt that I made for Jacquie's Project Improv.

 

All of the Red! Red! Red! in the above photo is making the sashing look a little pink.  However, I didn't experience any bleeding in the wash, despite the fact that I didn't prewash any of the red solids.  (I did use a color catcher, which came out a little bit pink.)  Yay! 

Note: I used cold water/gentle cycle in my HE front-loading washer.  Many things can cause variance in the way your fabric behaves in the wash, including the chemical content of your local water, the age and type of your washing machine, your detergent, and the temperature of the water you use. 

When in doubt, it's always safest to test your fabrics first.  Here is a fantastic swatch test that Melanie did for the fabrics she's using in her Paintbox Quilt.   

I used a teal shot cotton (not sure of exact color name) for the binding.  The sashing is Kona Snow.  The red solids came from the "Hot Stuff" Kona fat quarter bundle.  Blue prints were from my stash.

Here's a shot of the newly-crinkly back.  I LOVE the back of this quilt, though I still cringe a bit at the combination of the ultramarine blue in the KJR print with the seafoam green in the Japanese strawberry print.  It looks okay from far away like this, but it's really not a wonderful color combo up close!

 
Here's a detail shot of the crinkly back and the binding.

 
Jacquie, my mail carrier is picking this up today, so it will be on its way to you shortly

. . . and now for something totally different

 
I haven't put binding on this quilt yet but, since I haven't made a final decision on binding yet I thought I'd show you some photos.

This is my quilt for Project Improv.  It's a quilt that has been started, thrown out, and started over again many times during the past year or so. 

 
It took me a long time to realize that I actually did "get" improv piecing, but that I was getting in my own way.  My first few attempts were totally frustrating, because I kept actively trying to avoid making design decisions.  Every time I got an idea about where the composition might go, I though "No!  It has to be random."  Once I finally got it through my head that randomness is a component of, not the entire point of, improv piecing, things totally clicked for me and I was able to start with some random elements and use them to build a composition that I made up as I went along.  In the end, I'm pretty confident about calling that "Improv Piecing" even if others may have different ideas. 

Thinking about improv piecing as a sort of quilting equivalent of abstract expressionism was helpful.   

 
As I mentioned in this post, I started by cutting a bunch of strips of red Kona solids and turquoise prints.  I cut without a ruler, which resulted in kind of wonky, randomly-sized pieces.  I then sewed three randomly-selected solid strips and one randomly-selected print strip into sets of four.  I trimmed these strip sets to rough squares (again, not using a ruler).

l then marked a grid on my design wall with blue painter's tape.  I marked the outline of the quilt and then subdivided the area into seven rectangles of varying size.  I filled in each rectangle with pieced components, rotating every other component 90 degrees, for a kind of wonky rail fence look. 

I sewed all of the blocks within each rectangular area together and sewed the finished rectangles together with sashing between them.  I contemplated making the sashing wonky, but decided that I preferred the really sharp, crisp look of having the sashing both straight and perpendicular to the sides.  (The sashing is Kona Snow.)

I was pleasantly surprised by how well my quilting thread choice worked out.  I was really worried that, no matter what I chose, it was going to look weird somewhereon the quilt.  In the end, I chose a natural linen color (Gutermann 506) and I couldn't be happier with the look.  It's subtle enough on the deep reds, but doesn't stick out too much on the white sashing. 

 

I'm not too crazy about the back.  Since I'm a total dork, looking up "improvisation" in the dictionary was part of my research for this project, and since one of the dictionary definitions is "making do with materials on hand," I made my quilt back entirely from pieces of fabric I had in my sewing room.

I do like the effect of the red, but I kind of cringe about those blues and blue-greens together -- especially the ultramarine in that Katie Jump Rope print that's bisecting the back.  

 

So, anyway, that's my Project Improv quilt.  I feel like I'm on board with the whole improv piecing thing now and, while I don't see myself devoting a ton of time to this style, I can definitely see myself trying it again.

I Made an Improv Block!

 

To be fair, it's probably more like an Improv Block, twice removed, but still awesome!

 

I used hand-dyed fabric and scraps of a few coordinating quilting prints.

I was inspired by the (Not So) Crazy Quilt in Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts to interpret Denyse Schmidt's "paper bag technique" with a loose plan.  I didn't follow Joelle's pattern, and I added a step to integrate a print fabric into each block component, but my general approach was similar.

I really need to re-cover my design wall.  It's covered in strings!

The dye process used for these solids was inspired by the Sequenced Overdye System in  Katy J. Widger's book, Color Wheel Fabric Dyeing.  (A great introductory dyeing book for anyone interested in creating a lot of different colors of fabric from just a few colors of dye.)  

I wanted to dye a similar array of colors on a smaller scale and without overdying, so I turned to a process that I've used many times over the years: beer cup dyeing.  My idea was to dye 12" x 11" squares in 25 plastic beer/keg cups.  I set the beer cups up in a grid and created a formula to add different amounts of Golden Yellow and Light Red dye solutions to each column and row.  This process resulted in 25 different colors that, while not as beautiful as what might have been produced by overdying in general and Katy's process in particular, were perfectly serviceable for this project. 

Please let me know if there's any interest in a more detailed post about beer cup dyeing.  Like I said, it's not a very professional approach, but it can be a fun introduction and is great for people working in a small space.  (I used to do beer cup dyeing in the bathtub of my tiny apartment!)

 
You may have noticed a lot of references to books in today's post!  Besides being inspired by great books, I was inspired by Rebekah's new-ish Flickr Group, Putting Idea Books to Use. 

I'm pretty happy to have come up with a viable (for me) improv block process.  I'm going to use it to finally, FINALLY, finish my Project Improv quilt for Jacquie!

Oh, my ears and whiskers!

Today is the day my Project Improv quilt was supposed to be done and in Jacquie's hands.  I am most definitely LATE getting this done!  Jacquie, I apologize profusely and will have this to you as soon as possible.

Despite the tardiness though, I am thrilled with the way the blocks look so far.  I'm mostly using Anna Griffin's Darcey collection, which I bought a while ago and have been saving for the right project.  I love these colors together!  They're summery and preppy and retro all at the same time.

 

Here's a picture of my workstation.  I'm lucky that my little IKEA armchair is flat on top, because it means I can scoot it over next to my big table and put one of my old tabletops on top of it, creating a big table extension.  I cut lots and lots of strips of the Darcey fabric, Kona cotton solids and Essex cotton/linen in white.  I have a big piece of the green floral print (my favorite) for the back.

Now I just need to get the other 16 blocks done!

(By the way, if you think the above photo looks like a cat disaster waiting to happen, you're not wrong.  I just don't have photographs!)