Improv Piecing Doodles

Sometimes I feel like an impulsive child. The one who just barreled ahead, without thinking, infuriating their parents as they went. “What did you think would happen?” I am totally that parent. And I am totally that child.

I had an idea and just wanted to see what it would look like. I grabbed some scraps to play. Of course it would turn into a quilt! And here I was trying not to start any new quilts.

What did you think would happen?

Well, I didn’t think. I was just playing. And now it seems I’ve started a new quilt.

This represents 10 days of Morning Make sessions, plus maybe one or two stints in the evening. Just 20-30 minutes a day. For now I am calling these doodles. Lines on fabric. Pieced, not applique. I started in the scrap bin then pulled out from my actual solid stash. Initially I only went with orange, but after sharing the blocks on social media a few people mentioned that it looked like line drawings on the human forms, just in detail. That got me thinking so I started adding the browns. And I have a stack of pinks that will likely join in.

Other people said it looked like deconstructed basketballs, which I also see, but it less inspiring..

Like that impulsive child, I have no idea where it is going. Obviously it will be a quilt - I should have expected that - but what it will be is very much up in the air. Will I add sashing? Will I lay it out in a colour gradiant or by shape? How many blocks will I actually make? For now, I am just going to keep playing.

Setting myself up to sew right in front of the design wall feeds the creativity. Usually I am in this spot when I am machine quilting - so that the weight of the quilts does not pull off the table. I had moved the table here for just that, actually. Then I discovered I needed a new spool of thread. The delay meant the time to play. And now I am like “what quilt needs to be quilted?”

And oh, yes, there is a second, concurrent sewing project going on there. More on that next week.

Patterns versus Improv Piecing

Are patterns and improvisational quilting diametrically opposed? After last’s project update I had a few notes and questions from people questioning my assertion that precision piecing can be improv. I’ve heard the same thing in my classes over the years.

The perception is that you either sew improvisationally or you follow patterns. And never the two shall meet. This is far from the case. Both are creative acts and nearly all quilters, at different times, sew with varying degrees of improvisation and pattern following. It is not dissimilar to acting. 

Random, scrappy hand pieced diamonds, cut from templates.

When we think of acting and improv we think of rapid fire ad libbing and comedy. It’s like the audience is experiencing the actor’s brain, as it happens. With scripted work the actor is playing out someone else’s imagination. Both are awesome, valid, and creative.

 But if an actor just stood there and recited the lines of the script there would be nothing but words. It is in their interpretation, their own emotions, and their ability to translate the intent of the scriptwriter that the words come to life.

Following a pattern to make a quilt is quite similar. The designer, like the scriptwriter, is laying out the words for the actor to bring to life. Only you, the quilter, are in charge of bringing the design to life with your fabric selection, your seams, and your ways of finishing the quilt. Copy the quilt directly and you are still doing more than simply reciting the script.

Some very precise piecing in a block designed by Cristy Fincher of Purple Daisies Quilting, using her paperless paper piecing technique.

This notion that you are still creating when you sew from a pattern seems to be missing in the quilting world today. With so much of the decision making being offered up for the quilter in the form of patterns, precuts, bundles, and kits it can feel like creativity is given to us in a can. This isn’t necessarily the case.

For one, you are still making something. You are taking the time to sew together something with your own two hands (and likely a machine). This is a helluva lot more creative than going to a store to buy a blanket.

And for another, it is impossible to create exactly THAT quilt on the cover of the pattern. Even if you had all the same fabric and followed the pattern to the letter, your quilt has your hand, your sewing signature embedded in it. The stitches would be different, the quilting likely unique, and the final stitches in the binding present only in your quilt. 

While pattern following may get dissed for an apparent lack of creativity, improv gets all the credit. Is that really fair?

My Lilla quilt pattern - a mix of precision piecing and improv techniques - with an improvised layout limited by the fabric on hand.

 One of the most common forms of improvisational piecing is about sewing together random bits of fabric. The quilter may even remove all decision making from the process by placing their fabric in a brown paper bag or a basket. It becomes about the act of sewing, when control of fabric selection is taken away. In this sewing is still a creative act, but is there a lot of creativity involved? Absolutely there is, just like the quilter who agonizes over fabric selection for the Swoon quilt they are making. Just like the quilter who sketches out a new template for a flower they want to sew. Just like the quilter who picks a block pattern and starts making blocks with no end in site.

 I often tell my Improv students that part of improvisation is the ability to accept that you are starting without knowing where you will end up. You are starting with the intent, in most cases, of making a quilt. That never changes. And that is the same regardless of how you get there in the end.

Sometimes the pattern follower decides they want to add a few blocks, or change the layout compared to the pattern cover. They might run out of fabric and need to figure out a new solution. Sometimes the improv piecer is trying to recreate a certain shape or idea through their piecing. The level of interpretation and control vary, but they are essentially doing the same thing. The pattern follower is improvising, ad libbing as they go. They’ve taken the script and gone off in their own direction, improvising. The improvisational piecer is creating a template, a pattern for the direction they want to go.

It is even unfair to say that it is a continuum. You can’t put yourself on one end or another and sometimes in between. This still sets it up as an either/or thing. It can be both, at the same time.

Creativity is there because you are creating. As soon as you make, you are being creative. Any time you make a decision along the way, you are being creative. It isn’t about who is more creative, which way of sewing is more creative, it is about the act of creating. Creativity is still there, only manifested differently each time.

You may not be the script writer or the manic actor making us laugh, but you are a quilter, no matter what.

Started with vintage fabric and HSTs. It didn’t work so I had to improvise a layout that did.

A slightly different version of this post appeared as an article in Quilty. Continued thanks to Sean Hogan, an improv actor/teacher based in LA and Leanne Chahey of She Can Quilt for their insights.

Improv Quilts Can Be Precisely Pieced

Sometimes I just get in the mood for some precision piecing. Actually, it was more that I needed the distraction that comes with the need to focus when precision piecing.

The first of these blocks was probably made a decade or so ago. It was part of a BOM I found online called Constellations. I think I did the first 3 months and then never looked at or saw it again. Years back I tried to find the pattern to finish it because it was quite good, but never located it. Now and then - about once every year or two - I would pick a star block pattern I could find and make another block. I didn’t have to recreate the original quilt, after all! No plan, no rush though.

This is actually improvisational quilting. Yes, even though I am doing precision piecing. I define it as improv because I have no idea where I will end up. Improv = starting without knowing where you will end.

But this past week of dealing with stress and needing a different kind of break with my quilting brought out these blocks, and a path forward.

• 36 blocks needed

• 3 blocks of each star pattern

• Add more variation in the shapes of the stars for remaining blocks.

So I am digging through the scrap bins and raiding the stash for more combinations of fabrics, playing with the original colour scheme I started. I cut a block or two at night, to be ready for my Morning Make. And I’ve picked out patterns for the two new sets of three blocks I need to make to get up to 36 stars in total.

It’s exactly what I need right now.

Solid Triangle Play Quilt Top

In a way, it makes perfect sense to finish this quilt as summer ends. Although I started it a few years back, only as a class sample, it symbolizes the play of this past summer. And the stress relief that comes from play.

A bit of a loose plan - the rules of the game:

1. Each block to be made from only two fabrics.

2. Fabrics must be high contrast.

3. Piecing is improvisational.

4. Use the triangle and the many ways to make it, manipulate it, shape it to piece together the blocks.

That’s it. The rest of it evolved as it went, like kids making up new rules as they play the game. Square up to similar sizes once I’d made a few blocks. Oh look, I like it in rows so it goes in rows now. And then it was big enough and the game was over. Actually, the game was over and I just made it big enough.

(It finishes at about a lap size but I don’t know the actual measurements.)

As I shared the blocks over on Instagram I had some people mention different shapes they saw. How cool, like watching clouds! That completely changed my plan for quilting. For now, though, it gets added to the pile of quilt tops and moves places on the list of quilts under construction. Soon enough.

Now, as our brief moment of fall starts to pull back the curtain and as I ready myself and the family for our active schedule I will hang on to this spirit of play for it did me a load of good!