Saturday and Sunday, when I wasn’t working on Michelle’s IRR piece, I was working on the Improv Quilt. I know both are Improv projects.
The last time I made any progress on this piece was over a month ago. That progress felt forced and unsatisfying even though I didn’t know it at the time. I had the piece up on my design, which meant I had to look at it and that frustrated me. Frustrated me, because I wasn’t happy with the work as well as frustrated because it was taking up my design wall. I need to learn to make smaller quilts.
This weekend’s progress felt good. It was fast and intuitive and right. The piece is starting to look like something I won’t hate looking at.
I am not sure the blocks will end up where they are placed now, but there is a good bet some will stay where they are.
One thing that happened to jolt me ahead in the process was that I laid in bed one night, trying to get to sleep. I spent the time thinking about this piece and made a plan. I decided I would cut a big piece of red to use as a start to make some corner blocks.
I wasn’t completely on board with making ‘B’ blocks for the corners, so I made corner blocks, which are similar to the ‘A’ blocks. I did what I thought would look good. I can always make something different, right?
I like the corner block shown at left, but I wish I had varied the length of the neutral strips more. I did a bit, but not enough. It will be fine once the rest of the quilt is done and I am not going to worry about it right now. I do reserve the right to change it if the design needs it later.
I did sort of learn from this block and the first two ‘B’ blocks. I didn’t want all the ‘B’ blocks to be heavy, so I varied the length of the strips to give them less weight — or less perceived weight. I also made the centers a bit more interesting. I want people to be interested in looking at the piece.
I have about 7 more blocks to make on this monster. I have some slim hope I can finish it by next week and take it to be quilted. I am laughing, but you can stop. 😉 I know it is a pipe dream, but I would like to move this project along.
Interesting it is! I like how it’s turning out Jaye!
I keep my unfinished tops on the back of my sewing chair. Every time I sit down at the machine I’m reminded 🙂 And sometimes they fall down behind my back to frustate me. So I know how you feel 🙂 But I just can’t make smaller quilts, I like them to be used, not a wallhanging type of quilter… 🙂
I do make wall hangings, but mostly, as you have seen, my quilts are large. I keep my unpressed fabric on my chair as encouragement to press. 😉