Friday, July 23, 2021

Impetus to Improv...

 

I bought this book for inspiration because it seems to resonate with the way I like to do scrappy quilting. Having done one improv large quilt from the 15 Minutes of Play ideas and book, and then the one strip-block quilt I called Summer Quilt, and then all the little kitty quilties, I really wanted to use a lot of scraps and do another larger improv quilt, mainly with strips this time, although I cannot resist rectangles either. Rayna Gillman really has an approach that appeals. Frees the mind.  So I have been cutting up scraps and remnants of cottons I want to use but get rid of! Some are not so pretty, but I have learned that fabrics in wild combinations usually take on a new personality as the patterns emerge. Let's hope that happens this time! :) 

And another view....


I whipped up a possible pattern the other day, along with a new triangle quilt pattern which will be from Asian fabrics...I now have so many projects in the brain that it might take years to complete, if indeed I complete them....garments, doll clothes, quilts....but the good part is, I am not bored! :) Here is a taste of the pattern I hope to use as more or less a dropping off point...

You see the back of Rayna's book here...on purpose because that sentence needs to be solidified in our heads if we are to truly improvise.  I think that doing your own thing is so much more appealing than using a pattern someone else designed. Fabric art...that's what I call it...our foremothers used what they had, and they make patterns to use up scraps and make something useful and decorative.  I hope that is my outcome in these projects also.


 

2 comments:

glorm said...

Probably a lot more fun this way too. I like the idea in the sketch.

catspec said...

Thanks glorm!! Yes, and it saves me going nuts trying to interpret one of those intricate patterns....hahhaha.....you know - where it says "cut 958 1/4" squares" HAhaaa...