Improvisational Curve

 Sherri Lynn Wood taught Improvisational Curves on her Monday workshop. The fabrics come from 1 package of Grab Bag Cherrywood fabrics and 1 sampler pack of plaids from the C and T annual sale.  I started by sorting the dark medium and lights from the Grab Bag.  From the darks, I chose a range of 5 to 7 fabrics and made sure there was 1 zinger fabric that highlighted the darks.  These were cut into wedges and sewn together.

 Sherri discouraged the use of the rotary cutter and said to freehand cut the wedges with a scissors.  To create interest, some scraps were pieced together to form a wedge.

 The hardest part of the process was piecing the curves together.  I laid a dark and a light wedge with the right sides up and cut them together with a scissors.  Using a tailors chalk, I marked the edges where the light and dark met like dressmakers notches.  Then I pinned the right sides together and sewed.

All of the scraps were used to fill in the borders and the puka (hole) created in the circle.  Bobbi suggested I use the plaid fabrics in the puka instead of a solid color.  Good eyes Bobbi.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Score 1 Improv Squares

 Sherri Lynn Wood taught an EBHQ workshop on her Improvisational techniques.  This is from the Saturday workshop on Score 1 or Improvisational Squares.  I started with 3 fabrics, a white on white, a Japanese printed kasuri and a Hawaiian palaka or checkerboard print.  Following her instructions we cut the 3 fabrics into squares and just started sewing them together.  I loved it.

 From 10 feet away you don't notice the quilting.  Up close you can see the white thread on the dark blue fabrics.  I used both the front and back of the blue kasuri and the white fabrics.  The backs of both of these fabrics showed the base fabric without the printing and gave another dimension to the fabrics.

 I introduced a 4th fabric to help bind the assorted pieces together.  I think this fabric is Korean.  I would have liked to have fabrics printed in Japanese or Hawaiian to use, but this is the closest one I could find in blue and white.  I wanted to show the language barrier that results when different cultures come together. 

This orange and white Hawaiian print is the backing fabric.  What a shock of color after the blue and white.  I used a white gutterman thread to quilt around the flower and leaf motifs.