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.

Lone Star

 Helen Frost Young taught a workshop on the Lone Star pattern.  She asked us to pick out a dark medium and light fabric for the lone-star and complementary background and border fabrics.  Some students picked the border fabric first and then chose complementary fabrics from those.

 I chose Japanese dragonfly fabrics in yellow pink and orange.  Usually those colors don't match, but because the fabrics were like Japanese chirimen, almost a seersucker like fabric, they were complimentary in feel.  The background pale pink is also a Japanese fabric with a subtle woven feel.

 The skinny border is an old Japanese print and the orange border is the orange middle fabric used in the lone-star.  I used free motion quilting to highlight the dragonfly motifs in the border fabric.

The backing fabric and border are the same.  I don't remember where I got this.  Helen asked me where I found the dragonfly fabrics.  I think I bought the fabrics at Kaimuki Dry goods.  Probably a long time ago.  Whenever I visit my Mom in Hawaii, I always look for fabric, especially Japanese fabric.  I could have used regular quilting fabric especially since this was a sampler workshop, but I decided that the dragonflies had waited long enough.  I used wool batting which gave it a puffy lightness to the quilt.

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.

Double Ikat

 This is a picture that Betsy took of my Double Ikat quilt.  I had been saving double ikat fabrics for quite a while now.  Joan knew that I loved Japanese fabrics and gave me a handful of mostly black, grey and white double ikats.  I paired the black and white ikats with my Kaffe ikats and all the single and double ikats from my treasured Japanese fabrics.

 Most of the double ikat is handwoven.  Some of the Kaffe ikats are printed on.  Can you tell which is which?  Look closely at the fabric to notice the difference between a printed and a handwoven.   Kaffe Fassett had a line of colorful checked and dotted double ikats that were woven in India.  After a few years when I tried to get more, he started to use printed fabrics instead of the handwoven. 

I used the diamond and square pattern to show off the fabrics.  I tried to keep the colorful fabrics in the middle with the greys.  The black and white alternate on the top and bottom.

It was hard to cut some of the handwoven fabric.  I used to weave fabric in the 80's, so I know how hard it is to warp the loom and weave the weft fabrics.  It takes a lot of skill and patience.  I was just starting to dye my own threads when I moved to the East Bay and decided to store my loom.

The backing is a pink and grey hawaiian print.