Improv Progress

I am still feeling like I am in some weird in between place with my projects. There are projects where I am at a strange point that seems to be stopping me. I have to count up all of the FOTY squares and figure out how big I need to make the quilt. I need to cut some more squares for the Octagon Nine Patch, which has been languishing for, what feels like, a long time.

Improv Top in Progress
Improv Top in Progress

I decided to work on the Improv quilt again and get that project farther along.I finished a second ‘B’ and decided to sew it, along with the first ‘B’ block on to the quilt. I like what is happening and I can see where I go next, to a certain extent, but I think those 2 blocks look heavy. I might put them on the bottom, but I will see if I can lighten them up with more red on the three sides.

One idea I had from looking at the photo above is to make sure some red meets the red on the bottom and continues over almost to the corner. That will mean making that part of that corner side block last and making sure I remember. I think if I do that, there will have to be a bit of one of the black and white prints in the corner – or a strip of red alternated with black and white prints.

Improve top - turned
Improve top – turned

I also thought of making those blocks the bottom. Heaviness works on the bottom. The photo (left) is the same one as above, just turned so you don’t have to turn your head.

It looks ok, but I remembered that there will be other blocks on each side of those new ‘B’ blocks.

Yes, all the blocks are sewn together. I just wanted them sewn.

Improv Progress

Improv A Blocks
Improv A Blocks

After using some Flying Geese as leaders and enders, I switched to using the large Improv blocks as leaders and enders while putting together the T Donation quilt. The Improv quilt is not a good project for leaders and enders as I really should have it on the design wall and be looking at it all the time as I worked. I really wanted to make progress. This project has been shuffled from corner to corner of my workroom and I am forgetting my plan. My design walls were full of other projects, so it was what it was.

I added a few more strips to make the center (A) blocks more even then sewed the four center blocks together. This breaks my ‘Chunking It” rule, but I just wanted to see the four blocks together. Somehow with them together, I was able to start on the B blocks.

Improv B Block #1
Improv B Block #1

They look pretty good and I got excited about working the B blocks. I had bits and pieces that I made in class that I hoped to use, though I wasn’t sure what I was thinking when I made them, so I kept going. The first one went together relatively quickly and that helped me move forward with the others. I am working on about 4 at once right now and expect to have a big group of them done at once. We will see.

Improv Class

4 'A' Blocks
4 ‘A’ Blocks

Yesterday was a BAMQG Improv class at Always Quilting with Tina Michalik. I really liked it and it wasn’t  long enough, mostly because I was on a roll sewing and wanted to keep it up. Mostly I took it as a reward for smiling and being the perfect soon-to-be First Lady.

I wouldn’t really start an Improv quilt on my own in my workroom. It isn’t that I don’t  like the technique, the issue is that I have other things  to work on and the technique never comes to mind.

The last Improv quilt I made was the Women’s Work quilt I started in the Gwen Marston workshop. I like that quilt and remember the freedom I felt making the blocks. There was a similar feeling in the class yesterday. I think because of the constraints on my time lately I really liked that feeling of freedom.

I switched around the background and foreground so the red is actually the foreground according to Tina’s pattern. I wanted the interplay of the prints as the background. I may have been wrong in that choice as I am not liking what I have made so far. I like the interplay of fabric motifs and the black, white, greys with the red, but the center is too cross like. The center is sewn together, but I am considering unsewing and resewing in the way that Tina suggested. I am a little angry at myself because I did not even turn the blocks in Tina’s direction to consider laying them out with the red as the negative space.

Kelly's 'A' Blocks
Kelly’s ‘A’ Blocks

Kelly used some Alison Glass and Anna Maria Horner prints and I love the way hers looks.

Regardless, I want the prints area to be fatter, so I think taking the four blocks apart is in my future.

I’ll have to think about it.