Thursday, February 19, 2009

Improvisational Quilts 2

Update - hand quilted and finished 2013
to see it - to here
http://uniquelyyourscreations.blogspot.com/2013/10/bloggers-quilt-festival-chasing-rainbows.html

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Where do you get an idea from?

I had 2 bundles of fat quarters, a library book
- The Quilts of Gee's Bend and spotted a book
on my shelf by Jenny Beyer - Quiltmaking by Hand.
On pg. 7 Jenny says "...generations of quilters made do
with minimal supplies ... All it took was a needle and
thread, a thimble, a pair of sharp scissor, cardboard..."

Hmm, I thought about that for awhile.

The rotary cutter was created for quilters in 1979.
I wondered if I could manage to make a small quilt not
using a rotary cutter and piecing it by hand.

No ruler, just a large piece of cardboard and pencil
to draw my squares and strips.
I also wanted to experiment with colors - using colors
together that I never tried, instead of gravitating to my
old favorites. This was really a challenge for me. At
first I thought I couldn't stand to see certain colors next
to one another but I kept persisting.


I started by cutting out a square piece of fabric and
using that size as my template; I did the same for my strips.
Using my cardboard and pencil; I found that the sizes varied!
Part of the charm of some of the Gee's Bend is that not all of
the seams are perfect and the some fabrics don't match
- that to me adds to their beauty and uniqueness.


Surprisingly, it doesn't take long to hand sew all of the
pieces together. Using a running stitch; I made a couple of
squares in no time. I was tempted to draw a 1/4 " seam allowance
but I decided to just "wing" it. After all I don't want it to be perfect
- that's the point.


After all of my squares were sewn together; I have to
admit I couldn't stand it anymore and broke down
and got out my mat, cutter and ruler! I had to add the border
and I wanted it to be straight. You have to give credit to
the women who made quilts without these conveniences
that we have today.
I also wanted to add a piano like border - those were
cut with the rotary cutter BUT they were all hand sewn
also - 1 1/2" x 5" abt. 166 pieces! I must be nuts!


I'm very satisfied with the way it turned out.



Only I think it will be a long time before I hand piece another quilt top!

14 comments:

  1. Nuts or not....that quilt is beautiful!!!

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  2. Thank You Mimi! Lot of work
    and it had to grow on me but
    I love it.

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  3. Your quilt is a treasure: the colors are luminous. Maybe you won't hand piece another quilt for awhile, but your experiment with color and design is a big success.

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  4. This is great! I love the way this turned out. I took to quilting initially because of the limited supplies needed and that it traveled well. I think too often it's easy to buy into (pun intended) the belief that we need a lot of supplies to quilt. A great exercise!

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  5. I love it too! It would be so cool hand quilted with lots of textures. The colors are fun and cheerful too.

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  6. Quilt looks awesome. When I first learned to quilt. My Grandma used brown paper bag for templates and cut everything with scissors. It was so slow. Long live the rotary cutter.

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  8. Thank You Ladies! I appreciate your
    comments and for stopping by my blog.

    I probably will
    handpiece another quilt top; I find
    it very relaxing. And yes, Debra
    I agree with you "hand quilting
    with lots of texture". I'm loving
    it already.

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  9. OMG... you hand pieced the whole top? Just beautiful... quite my style!! Well done. Lx

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  10. Ciao, I've seen you follow my blog.
    I've been to your blog, it's very very pretty and I'll see everything better little by little.
    Ciao, ciao from Italy

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  11. Good for you! What a wonderful quilt. I find hand piecing very satisfying and it really does take that much time.

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  12. What an incredible quilt you made! My first quilts were cut out using a pen and cardboard templates and .... lordy .... the day I bought a rotary cutter, ruler and mat was the best day of my quilting life.

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