My Favourite Gadget

Do you know what this is? Hands down, it is my favourite tool for quilting. I'm not a gadget, multiple rulers, fancy papers kind of girl. But the day I discovered this was revolutionary.

To be fair, I think it was my sister or Hubby who actually discovered it for me. I remember getting it for Christmas one year. how I survived without it is beyond me. If you are a pin baster then you NEED this.  It's the best $20 you'll ever spend on quilting. The handy Kwik Klip saves your fingers and a heck of a lot of time when you are pin basting a quilt. It essentially lifts the bar of the pin to close it. Instead of you pinching it yourself. Finger saving, I tell ya!

I've seen these at every local quilt shop, but I've also found them on-line.

(If you do decide to search for them on line, be careful of your search terms.  If you only use Kwik Klip the internet seems to think you are looking for a specific gun accessory!)

Improv Sampler - Chopsticks

There really is more to improvisational quilting that wonky log cabins.  Of course, those are good too.  But this technique, which I call chopsticks, is the first step in some fun designs.

Start with a square that is roughly the size you want your finished block to be.  Or just start with a square in any size and see what happens.  Cut some strips of other fabrics, slightly longer than your square.

Slice your square on any angle - through the middle, close to the side, or even lop off a corner. Don't throw away either piece.  It is best to keep the pieces set-up as if you just cut them so you can remember how it all goes back together.

Pick up the piece on the left side and sew one of your strips to it, right sides together.  Open and press.

Pick up the remaining piece of your square and sew it to the edge of the strip, as if you were sewing the original square back together (but with the strip in between).  Open and press.

You can sew one strip or many.  The process is the same every time.  Start with the square, slice, re-sew, and press.  Your strips can be parallel, on an skewed angle, or even perpendicular, like this quilt.

Important tips for this technique:

- Don't start with a square that is exactly the finished size you want because you will lose bits as you re-sew.  Start larger and trim down.

- Try not to have strips less than 3/4 inch on the edges.

- Strongly contrasting fabrics work best, but you could get a subtle design with fabrics close in value or colour.

Thread Catcher

One of the annoying side effects of improvisational quilting is the constant starting and stopping when you sew.  Depending on your plan of attack it might be difficult to chain piece. That can leave a lot of cut threads, mess, and wasted time.  A good quilting friend of mine taught me this trick.

Take a scrap of fabric and double it up (or use two small pieces).  When you finish a seam, sew a a few stitches in to nothing, then sew in to your scrap.  You can then cut your piece from the scrap without a tangle of threads to deal with.  When you come back to your machine for the next seam just sew from the scrap piece, cutting it off when you go to press.

I usually keep two of these by the machine.  One for the start of my sewing and one when I finish the seam I'm working on.  That way you always have one handy to plug in to the end of your seam when you leave the machine to press.

Breaking Free

Improvisational quilting is not just about making wonky log cabins or wavy strip quilts. it's about not buying kits and patterns and fabric lines. In the spirit of Project Improv, and because I still don’t have a camera, I thought I could offer some encouragement for those just breaking into improvisational quilting.

Where do you start? Well, that depends on your goals and inspiration. Are you trying to make a baby quilt to match a room? Have you fallen in love with one particular fabric that you want to showcase? Are you simply interested in playing around at your machine? Heck, maybe it's all three.

For the nearly 50 quilts I've made or contributed to in my 10 years of quilting I can honestly say that maybe 5 were from a pattern - a straight out of the package or book pattern. I'm not one to be told what to do, so early on I started adapting ideas I saw, or creating my own to make my quilts. I would really call it an evolution of technique and effort, not a style.

The first foray into my own designs was simply taking traditional block patterns and putting them together without a pattern. I never understood how companies got away with putting together a pattern for a traditional block, like a maple leaf or churn dash, in a simple setting and convince people that they should pay $10 for it. Maybe it made sense before the proliferation of block patterns available on-line or in books? But you still see them in the stores. I digress.

My favourite places to search for blocks were here or here. If I was making a quilt for someone in particular I would try to pick a block that related to the person. For example, a Monkey Wrench block for a friend that likes to make furniture. Generally I would make a few blocks before I decided where I was going with the quilt. I almost never decide exactly what the quilt will end up as before I start. It is always an iterative process. Sometimes the settings were even quite traditional, with sashings and everything. It just depended on the recipient (if there was one planned) or simply what looked right.

Another favourite thing for a while was to take a block pattern and make it big. This works nicely for baby quilts. A 12 inch block translates nicely into a 36 inch block. This evolved into what I called jazz quilting: taking that original block pattern and repeating it in different sizes.

Then I got my new sewing machine. Thus started the obession with circles. I've made a whole shwack of circles quilts, all very different. The first one I did is one that still requires a label, but it already keeps Hubby warm on the couch in the evenings.

Subsequent circle quilts have included pieced backgrounds. This move then got me thinking about different ways to do these backgrounds and new shapes to applique. It's amazing how a simple shape like a half square triangle can look so different depending on what you do with it. Three of my most recent quilts all have half square triangles, but fabric choice and placement change the way they look. Often I cut the fabric first and make the blocks, then worry about placement and setting. Such was the case with this, this, and this quilt.

Along the way I've tried new things too. I had to get my Denyse Schmidt on and made this quilt a while ago.

And I liked the idea of the popular Yellow Brick Road quilts. But again, I couldn't bring myself to buy a pattern for what looked so simple. Rather than try and copy it I drafted my own pattern. When I went to make the quilt I decided I didn't want the look of a whole bunch of squares and rectangles. So I combined the wonky log cabin look with the pattern I drew and came up with this.
(Sorry about the crappy photo, I could only find a tiny one. The original is on the old computer and that's packed away for the renos.)

My latest projects have been about shapes too, and a lot of seeing what happens as you sew. Cut some fabric and sew, then see what happens. It's kind of like what would happen if Jackson Pollack quilted. Sometimes it is more about the process and not the end product. But you can still make something beautiful out of it.

When you are looking to break free from patterns and kits, remember you don't have to throw out everything from traditional quilting. It is always still a good idea to use a scant quarter inch seam, press well, and trim your blocks square. You can still take those traditional ideas and make them into something new. Don't be afraid. Just start sewing.