Improv Piecing and a “Boot”
I didn’t have enough time this week to go through my photos of the Big Quilt Room of the Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild show. It’s been a super busy week for me so I’ll post those photos next week.
Lucky me, I got to take an Improv Piecing class with Ellen Schmidt at Meissner’s Folsom location. It’s hard to find the time to take classes so I’m very picky about what I take.
I was excited when I saw that Ellen was going to offer an improvisational piecing class. I had purchased and enjoyed Sherri Lynn Wood’s book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters, but I wanted to be in a guided classroom situation for my first improv piecing. Given that I call myself a “recovering perfectionist” it was best for me to have some help!
Ellen brought along a few small samples of some improv pieces she had done and I loved this table runner.
Her inspiration came from these two photos, and the top photo is one that is also in my inspiration folder! Ellen called the colorful scraps in the runner the “rocks” with the surrounding white fabric the “sand”.
It was a great class and I had a blast. Meissner’s keeps scraps available for students and customers to browse through for their projects. I dug into that pile and pulled out some random scraps that were interesting to me and looked like they might play well together.
She had me cut random pieces from the scraps, using a ruler for a straight edge, without parallel sides. I cut random strips 2-5″ wide from my white background fabric and sewed the “rocks” to the sand. After pressing and extending the cut to the edge of each strip, I added that piece to another strip of white. Now each “rock” was surrounded by “sand” on two sides. I forgot to take a photo of this part. Now the fun begins…
This is my first layout-I literally just slapped them up on the design wall with no thought as to order. Then we stood back and pondered what we had. I realized that I kind of had a calm corner in the lower right and little bit of chaos on the left. So why not go with that theme?
Once I established some sort of plan/order, Ellen suggested adding fabric to fill in the blank spots. This was intimidating. You have this fairly complex collection of random scraps and you have to figure out how to sew them together. Ellen does not do y-seams or inset squares-whew! She explained that you just take it one step at a time, pondering the next piecing line, figuring out if and where to add fabric.
The lower right hand corner is pieced in this photo, right as class ended. This was fun! I really did not want to stop. I can’t wait until my schedule clears so that I can complete this top.
I pondered how or whether to embellish this piece. I think I will add some simple embroidery stitches and very simple vintage buttons for texture. But first I will quilt it. How? I’m thinking about extending the piecing lines with straight stitching, resulting in a very angular quilting pattern. I will not stitch over the “rocks” as I want them to have some dimension. This may be harder than it sounds but I’m game to try it!
And I just got this lovely boot on Tuesday-lucky me! I broke my little toe on the left foot 8 weeks ago and I still could not wear shoes. Obviously I needed to check in with my doctor. He was aghast that I was putting in 14,000 steps a day. He did a bit of a forehead slap, as if to say, well girl, if you’re going to walk that much no wonder it hasn’t healed! Given that I am teaching in Chicago in early April, I knew I needed to work on this now so that I wasn’t wearing flip flops in the (possible) snow and ice!
I am fortunate that my toe does not hurt, it’s just too swollen to put a shoe on it. As I sat in the pedorthists office, waiting to be fitted, I noticed the wall of orthopedic shoes. And I realized, I need to take care of my feet or I’m going to wearing those shoes.
Oh I miss my cute shoes! I’m not a Shoe Girl, but dang, I do have some cute ones that are just gathering dust. I am going to be a Very Good Girl and wear this boot all day for the appointed time. And I am going to be so happy to wear cute shoes again!
Can’t wait to see the finished quilt! Fun and inspiring.
Thanks Peggy-it was fun!
Interesting that both her tablerunner and her inspiration photo have all parallel sides and she was having you cut without parallels. Looked up some of her other work and can’t find any with all of the weird angles. I like the random sizes and colors but all of the angles in the white look chaotic to me.
I’d want to fill in the angles in the colored pieces with white first and then piece them into the background with straight lines. Perhaps have two parallel sides or one right angle on each colored piece. Guess I’m just too old school. Sounds like fun though.
Oh I think I went rogue without realizing it and then went with the flow. She accommodated me well! I think I’ll stick with this-its my first attempt and I didn’t expect it to win Best of Show or anything!
Not sure you were so rogue. Sounds like you followed her instructions.
No actually I did do it differently-didn’t realize it until your comment!
Fun!! Now I want to make a piece with a lot of white on it! And cute shoes–yeah. Now I want to go shoe shopping :)
Not sure if I am a good influence Debby! Just do it!
Lovin’ your ‘rogue’ quilt, Jenny! (grin) Bonnie K. Hunter — the Scrap Quilting Queen — does something similar, but without the solid-colour ‘background’ favoured by Modern Quilters. She refers to this sort of piecing as ‘piecing crumbs’. These are scraps of fabric already cut at weird and wonderful angles because they’re left over from other projects. A challenge to put together — and fun, if you like puzzles! (I do) Once a sizeable ‘block’ is created from the crumbs (say enough for a small square to be cut out), the ‘block’ gets trimmed to a ‘regular’ shape and used as if it were a single piece of cloth…that’s where background/sashing come into play. Just something to add to your tool kit for future reference…!
Meanwhile, you can teach in style in that boot! Hope the toe heals at last. Hugs!
Thanks Margaret-I didn’t know Bonnie’s “crumbs” were like this. I’d heard about that but I don’t follow her. It is indeed puzzle like for sure. As to “teaching in style”-um, not so much! I just taught last weekend and it just seemed to take forever to get to my students!
I also thought that hers looked like all parallel lines and yours are radon, but I like where it is headed and with your quilting, it should be over the top. I had a broken toe a few years ago and waited three weeks to see a doctor, thought there was nothing to be done about it. In those three weeks I spent a few days in Chicago where we walked and walked, me in great pain. He didn’t put me in a boot but I had to wear sneakers with my orthodicts for the whole summer. No more cute sandals. It took forever to heal. Lesson learned, if you drop something really heavy on your toe and it hurts like hell, go to the doctor.
Thanks Norma-I do think the quilting can really make this quilt. Oh yes, lesson learned about foot stuff. The dr also said there was not much to be done. He offered up a boot but knew I was moving, to a two-story home, and he thought that sounded like a dangerous situation for a boot. And it would have been. Since I walk 15,000 steps a day, the boot became a necessity. And I hate it!
Thanks for showing the improv piecing method – it looks so much fun, and perfect for recovering perfectionists!
Yes Margaret-a perfect recovery vehicle! It was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to finish it.
First — I am so sorry about your broken toe and I totally get how you feel about that boot! Please, if anyone from Jimmy Choo is out there listening — please make a sexy orthopedic boot for stylish ladies with broken toes!!!
Second… The improv piecing looks cool! I am curious — do you totally disregard grain line with this method, or did you have to know where you were going to use each piece and line up the grain accordingly? This will be a FABULOUS top for some FMQ when you are done with it!
Love your comments Rebecca! As to a sexy orthopedic boot-probably not anytime soon! I could always wear a cute shoe on my right foot, but the height has to be the same as the boot. Unfortunately, the closest fit is…. a flip flop-ugh. I did not think about grain at all and it will be interesting to see how that plays out. The instructor did, now that I think about it. And yessssss-lots of room to fmq!!