ABSOLUTELY B R I L L I A N T!!!!!!! Required fields are marked *, Check here to Subscribe to notifications for new posts. Half-square triangles which are super useful units. Improv quilting is an approach to piecing fabric where one goes by a system or process of piecing rather than following the sequential directions of a quilt pattern. Once the parameters of the system are set for making these squares, I can sit at my machine with the scrappy bin by my side and have one of those sewing sessions where time flies in the blink of an eye. There you have it, your finished improv block! Decide if you want your flying geese units to be rectangular or square. Tutorials are posted for your personal use. Tools and Supplies for Improv Piecing She was introduced to quilting by her paternal grandmother in high school when her grandmother offered to hand quilt a twin-size quilt to use in her college dorm room if Yvonne made the quilt top. Measure not exactly with a ruler, but place the newest piece of fabric adjacent to the edge of the previous piece to see if it would be a good fit. Its a creative, sustainable way to use all of the beautiful fabric hiding in that scrap stash and design one-of-a-kind quilts. Thank you! Theres something amazing about a quilt that cant be replicated, even if you wanted to. Use code JETGIRL to get 10% off any order fromCurated Quilts! Do not leave raw fabric edges or interfacing exposed in the middle of the square. Blue Quilts. I eventually settled on a two-sided square table topper, because I had just enough fabric to make it entirely from my three fat quarters. Fantastic work! I promise to never promote anything that I dont use and love personally. Pick a scrap to add to the first side of your starting scrap. It's such a liberating process. Yvonnes quilts have been featured in numerous national and international magazines, quilt shows, and books. Still my love of triangles persisted. It's fun and makes use of all your scrap sizes! Use them as a square in a traditional quilt block and mix with solids for a contrasting look. The tutorial is just perfect too, as I had forgotten about a lovely holiday runner I made this way. Yes. Get the latest news, stay up-to-date with sew-alongs + events and receive the occasional free offer! Step 8: Fold your circle in half in the other direction and press. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), How to Modify Your Ironing Board into a Rectangular (Quilter's) Ironing Board, No-Waste Flying Geese Tutorial and Top Tips, Updated Four-at-a-Time Flying Geese Tutorial and Sizing Tables. The small scrap would be traced and the cutting line drawn 1/2 inside the original tracing line. The next step is to cut triangle shapes out of your squares. You must have a lot of tiny little helpers in the night we call them Heinzelmnnchen to help you to do. It looks like you brought a piece of your tropical Hawaiian garden out to play in the snow. This patten will be available September 1st, and it is a quick, easy intro to sewing curves! I truly hope you find the links I include helpful. and of course the snow really makes those colors pop!!! Its a rough sort and I tend to not keep anything under 1 square. This simple block is a breeze to cut and sews together quickly. . Scrappy Quilts. The spacing between the lines varies from about 3/4 to 3/8 but averages out at around 1/2. You may NOT republish my content. Please check your email for further instructions. I used Michael Millers Krystal Neutrals Square0167 layer cake set. Wow! Improv Quilting. Improv stack and whack quarter circles block - video tutorial Teresa DownUnder 187K subscribers Subscribe 15K views 1 year ago Sewing tutorials This block is a lot of fun. As you can see in the basting photo above, I rotated every other basting pin (one pin runs north/south, the next runs east/west, and so on) and I pin basted the batting to the backing just outside the quilt top. Teresa Mairal Barreu, TeresaDownUnder of Sewn up. Improv Circles Purple is the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. If I had to guess I'd "blame" the texture on the fact that I didn't baste the quilt. You are the reason the pointy shape chapter exists in my book. The beauty of this method is that you can use orphaned blocks, excess binding and all those little half square triangle offcuts to continue growing your scrappy fabric. What a fun and cute baby quilt in such a short time! The sides dont have to be even, you just need an number of sides greater than 4 to stop it looking like an improv log cabin. From the color changes to the amazing binding and the quilting!! The colors are less consistent between blocks, but are all from an earthy palette that blends as you zoom out. I want to make a Marie Shell inspired quilt not a Maria Shell Quilt. And have to say no for myself and keep the fingers away. Simply add your details below! In general, you'll be gently stretching the fabric that has a concave curve in that section. Usually my improv blocks are totally scrappy, like this one-a detail of my popular Red Totem quilt-although it does have some stripes in it: Red Totem Detail - Cindy Grisdela But I wanted to try something a little more controlled and a little more stripey. Cut the improv blocks about 1in larger than necessary, then sew them into a final block before trimming again (Fig 1). Or you make your own improv quilt using the Quarantine Improv Quilt prompts! I love it! Then quilting proceeds in a spiraling line, about a finger width apart. I had no idea if I had enough fabric here to create what I wanted, but the only way to find out was to start sewing. Quilted using Aurifil #4657, 50wt. Dont despairabout cutting up your scraps, just add them back into your scrap box and use them again. January 25, 2017 . Trim around the periphery of the template and unfold. 2023 Quilting Jetgirl | All Rights Reserved. Begin by sorting according to size, color, and shape. When you are done cutting your fabric, sort the skinny triangles from the fat triangles into piles that look like this. I see these squares as training wheels, which is why I recommend only purchasing one yard. Spoiler alert: the teal greens ended up making their way back into the quilt. For the challenge I received the Florence Brown Aurifil Color Builder with three large spools of 50wt in Ermine (#2312), Toast (#6010), and Chocolate (#2360), a trio of Michael Miller Cotton Couture fat quarters in Khaki, Ginger, and Brown, an OLFA 28mm rotary blade (with refills), and a 24 x 36 OLFA cutting mat in Navy. *At other times, there may be a small curved scrap or inset circle that is the priority piece, so a larger scrap would be trimmed to coordinate. I love your process for this quilt, Cathy! Feb 1, 2023 - Explore Mardi Gruber's board "Circle quilts" on Pinterest. Detail of Jumping for Joy with new stripes Cindy Grisdela. And I get stripes to use in other projects like this one. I am SERIOUS about this folks. These are the parameters that I have set for this particular process: 1. Now check your email to confirm your subscription. Turn the new piece of fabric RST along that adjacent edge with the previous piece of fabric. You may also note in the photo that I opted to use a two tone binding, an orange and green. Now, over 25 years later, Yvonne has developed a style that bridges her technical background and love of bold color, specializing in transparency color play and bold, geometric designs. You can see in the photo that I decided to go with option 2 of course. Dont skip on the ironing. The angles appeal to me given the linear nature of the other blocks, and I like the happy accident of the red stripe in the block on the top right flowing into the red stripe in the middle block. Sew a 1/4 seam away from the edge of the fabric scrap. Those are great! Next I sewed the two circle together with a " seam and then cut out and removed the center of the interfacing. Polka Dot Embroidery Design. So for me, the most difficult-to-achieve style of modern quilt-making has been improv. The colors and design movement are wonderfully captivating. Using your rotary cutter, slice off the little bit of fabric that extends past the edges of the triangle while also smoothing the edges of the skinny triangle shape. The patterns are copyrighted for Elm Street Quilts. Notice that the pieces go over the edge of the interfacing square by about 1/2 on all sides. Step 4. Thank you Rachelits my favorite way to create! Watch. This is my favorite part of the process! Cut along the inner set of markings. Photo by Humble Quilts. This is a perfect for tiny scraps on a small project like a tote, pouch, pillow cover, wallhanging, etc. As for my walking foot technique, I quilted in one color at a time, so I did all the wavy lines across the quilt in the first color, then went over the same area again with offset curves in the next color. (Figure 3.). There were over 500 quilts hanging at QuiltCon this year, which is quite the number to take in. This example is using a rainbow scrap created while testing templates and a curved scrap from the cutting process: Step 1. Theres something about solids for a modern design. In the real world, scraps are dropped into a bottomless basket, never to be seen again, so sorting your fabric is a MUST. Turn the square Right-Side-Down and trim alongside the guidelines of the interfacing squares. This is definitely one of my favorites of your quilts! Theres not a square in this quilt: just curves and rectangles. Remove the edges you've cut off of both fabrics so you have two pieces that fit together like a puzzle with the same curve cut. This is one of my RSC projects I experimented with last year and am continuing on this year. I generally opt for quilting lines in the same direction (i.e. Trim to their largest square or rectangular size. But precision is perfection! Requiring one black-on-white charm pack, eleven 2 " white-on-black jelly roll strips and 1/2 yard of your favorite contrast fabric, this quilt can go together in a matter of hours. Step 2. Chances are youre not going to have a five sided scrap just laying in a box waiting for you to use it so using your rotary cutter just make a 5 sided scrap. Yes, were quilting outside the lines, but organization creates a structure from which to sew. Free Block Friday is a weeklyfree downloadblock design that can be used to complete a sampler style quilt. Sew square and rectangle scraps together that are the same length, or in ascending/descending length order. 5. I am a huge lover of the plastic storage box. This will change depending on which part of the curve you are on. These marks will be equal distance apart. In this example, the color groups are sectioned between the blocks instead of interspersed throughout the design. Click here for full tutorial, or click here to purchase a printable PDF version. I had put on my wellies, but by the end I would have been better off using my snowshoes. It is up to you to decided if you are going to use a ruler. Wow, really beautiful, Yvonne! 1. Trim the strips to align with the edges of the curve (Figure 1). Id love to hear your thoughts. So thats my sewing room set up, I hope it might have given you something to think about when it comes to scrap sorting. Follow me: @gnomeangel. Initially I was considering a table runner with improv curves in khaki, ginger, and brown and thought I'd appliqu on some leaves in fall colors. Press the seam to the outside and then trim the added scrap to line up with the next side of your starting scrap. That would be an added incentive for me to go. And done on such a short notice! I read your blog. But I just cant seem to make one. Day 1 was cutting and assembling the blocks, then ironing them well. In this post, we will be demonstrating the Large Improv Blocks using templates from the Pasadena Curves Quilt by Sylvia Raschella and Pasadena Quilt Studio. I opted to quilt soft, wavy lines using my walking foot. I hope this tutorial is useful and has you thinking about how you might use triangles in your work. It hasn't been washed and will really wrinkle up when I wash it. Improv Abstraction Workshop with Karen Foster, Planned Improv Tutorial: Triangles on the Corners, Mini Charm Challenge: Zig Zag Placemat Tutorial, Slice and Stitch Challenge: Improv Curves Tutorial. The top and bottom edges are not aligned at all. Quilter | Designer | Tech Editor | Blogger. I like it too. Using the method below, you may create roses any size between 6" and 18". I didnt take any pictures while I was piecing, but here is a photograph of one of the blocks after squaring it up to 6 wide by 8 1/2 tall. The edges are turned under and stitched together, and batting is laid inside. Hand-dyed fabrics pair with dominant quilting motifs to provide subtle color shifts. Which means you can use them like you would any other Drunkard Path block. I used layer cakes for this tutorial which makes the quilt a breeze and the layouts are many. Your email address will not be published. Watch. Improv piecing often involves trial and error, so having a pressing mat close by avoids endless trips back and forth to the ironing board, Step 5. Thank you so much for commenting on the triangles. Thank you to Aurifil, OLFA, and Michael Miller for supplying me with everything featured in this quilt. I keep a small square plastic bucket and a small plastic rubbish bin under the table near my cutting mat that I use to put my scraps in as I work on a project. You can also depart from those guidelines a little bit and fussy cut 5 with your ruler, with the extra room you provided by piecing 1/2 over the edges of the square. http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2019/05/thinking-vertically.html. Improv stack, cut and sew quarter circles video tutorial by TeresaDownUnder June 26, 2021 3 Comments This block is a lot of fun. Firstly though, let me walk you through my scrap management system(that makes it sound much posher than it is!). I am blown away by this quilt, especially that it is all improve and you created in a less than a week. My first one lasted for 7 years, and as I mentioned above, I suspect it met an untimely death due to a power surge. Repeat step 4 until you've sewn on to all sides of your start scrap. Take the ruler to measure (or approximate) 1/2 outside the first set of markings. Two weeksago I happened uponan episode of Sewing with Nancy that featured Victoria Findlay Wolfeand her amazing quilts. (LogOut/ Because the blocks are improv'd each will be different from each other, just as trees are in nature.