Tuesday 13 September 2016

Improv Floating Squares 1: Score 1











This arrived last Friday:

Sherri Lynn Wood's Improve Handbook for Modern Quilters - my copy and my tools!
after dithering over whether or not to buy it since it's arrival on the market was announced, I finally raided my piggy bank, and I'm so glad I did. This book is crammed full of useful suggestions for organising improv. This was the biggest problem for me I think; I would just start without having considered where I was going, or setting myself limits. I still don't know where it all will lead, but at least I'm not thinking totally open-ended any more.

Following the suggestions in Score 1, I made this 19" x 17" piece.

Score 1: Floating Squares 19" x 17"
The colours are dark red, orange and a cream/yellow; the latter doesn't show up to well in the photo. I set myself the limit of a 20" square, but when I ran out of dark red completely - not a square inch left in my stash - decided to call it a day.

The only tools I used were cutting mat, rotary cutter, scissors, and finger pressing tool (to give my arthritis a break!) All the cutting was freehand, but I did use the lines on the cutting mat as visual guides. I was surprised how quickly I got used to working this way, and while not perfect, a deviation of one eighth of an inch I find acceptable. However it does result in wonky "squares" and when there are two together the deviation is obvious. Next time I have to pay more attention to the orientation of wonky pieces before I stitch them together.

I haven't squared up yet because I'm considering continuing by using the same filler fabric and orange and pink squares as a transition to pink and ... what? I don't know yet; we'll see! At the moment I'm just thinking about what I will do with this if I do stop here.

I enjoyed this exercise enormously and found it so much more satisfying than following a pattern. Who cares about wonkiness? It's liberated wonkiness!

I'm linking to

http://www.conniekresin.com/2016/09/linky-tuesday-september-13th.html   Sew Fresh Quilts  Needle and Thread Thursday  

Pop over there to see what else is going on this week.
 

Happy Sewing

Marly.

9 comments:

Cheryl said...

Beautiful blocks! I have Sherri Lynn Woods book too and love it.

Christine B said...

It looks great Marly and all the better that you enjoyed the process so much! Christine x

Jayne said...

What a fun process and your block is wonderful, wonky and all! I happen to love wonky!

Lisa J. said...

This is a fun process isn't it Marly. I really love your version. Such beautiful colours.

Kate @ Smiles From Kate said...

You made a great job of score 1 Marley, I have the book too, I love it. So far I have only done Score I but I hope to move on to score 2 soon. I will look forward to seeing more of your scores.

Sophie Zaugg said...

It's a good start Marly ! I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next. I really enjoyed the process for Score #1.

Anne / Springleaf Studios said...

It's a wonderful book. The only one I've bought for myself in a long time and I'm definitely not an improv quilter. I did the same starting exercise as you and enjoyed the process. Haven't moved past that yet but I still plan to at some point. Enjoy the challenge and keep going.

Kaja said...

This book seems to have sparked something off for lots of people and it has definitely worked for you too. It will be interesting to see what you decide to do with this next.

Ruth said...

I love this book and have only used it for a border on a round robin quilt but am hoping to get to it properly this side of Christmas - Score 1 looks great and it's definitely got you thinking of playing some more - that's the beauty of improv I think!