playing with circles in quilting

Improv Curves Within A Daily Practice

Improv Curves in Quilting, Top

My morning practice, is paying off in spades. It helps me focus and manage my emotions for the day. It acts in a very similar way to a meditation practice by centering me and filtering the noise. And on top of that - I finish quilt tops!

These blocks started as samples for teaching a class. One day I grabbed a stack of solids and just used them. Well then I really liked the accidental combination so I did some editing and adding. Over the course of a few classes more blocks were made. When I was pulling blocks for my daily practice I came across these. Perfect! It was quick to get the blocks done, it took much longer to figure out the best layout.

Quarter circles, like half square triangles, give you many, many, many layout options. Because I'd gone with an only somewhat controlled colour scheme I was trying layouts to give me order more than anything. Random is awesome, but sometimes it doesn't give you a good design. Because I'd included many colours, in both lights and darks, there was no clear cut way to get a successful design. For me, however, that's the fun. I LOVE the challenge of finding a good design.

If you follow me on Instagram you probably saw the many iterations for this quilt top. I wavered, I played, I experimented, I wavered some more. Finally I found my order by focusing on colour and the interconnecting of the one print in the quilt. This design may not be everyone's favourite, but I am in love.  

It's definitely going to be a fun one to quilt!

If you would like to know more about Improv Curves look for a class of mine near you (or book one) or check out my Inset and Applique Circles by Machine class on Craftsy, we cover it in one of the lessons.

Smooch - Using Half Circles in Quilt Design




Smooch
74'' x 53''

Depending on how you look at, it is hearts or lips. I choose to see lips. Big, juicy lips heading towards a kiss. Whether that is the first kiss of a married couple, the slobbery attempts of a toddler attempting to kiss Mama, tentative lip locks of teenagers, a son kissing his mother goodbye.

This entire quilt started as a plan to show quilters that you can use half circles just as easily as two quarter circles. Just that, in a fun design. But now I have grand plans for this quilt. But first, the details.



I used only 5 fabrics in total. Absolutely shocking for me! The lips are Cloud 9 Cirrus Solids, the background is a print from Cotton and Steel. The backing fabric is a gorgeous voile designed by Bari J. for Art Gallery. Finally, the binding is an older one I found in my stash, I think it is from Birch Organics.

Quilting was done on my Bernina 820. My Stitch Regulator is not working properly so I turned it off and just free motioned the hearts inside the lips. I used a variegated pink, then a red from Wonderful for the lips. The background is quilted with straight lines using Aurifil. There was a lot of stopping and starting on those lines, but it was totally worth it for the finished impact and texture.



It is fairly densely quilted, but with the voile backing and Quilters' Dream Cotton batting it is quite soft. Gloriously soft.

Perfect for snuggles. Because if there ever was a quilt that invited snuggles...