The technique is one of the scores in Sherri's upcoming book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters: A Practical Guide for Creating, Quilting, and Living Courageously. Her book is coming out next month but you can purchase it early at QuiltCon. See her post here.
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| Round Robin Improv quilt |
Someone added the lovely fabric with large dots. This inspired my choice for the red and black sunflowers on the left side as well as the appliqued circles. All the circles are leftovers from Propellers. How lucky is that?
Originally I tried this little wavy zig-zag stitch several others quilters have used. The thread is a softly variegated 18-weight cotton. It seemed to pull the quilt a bit tighter than I expected. The reason shows on the back. The bobbin tension is much too tight.
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| Machine quilting with very bad tension. The bobbin thread is much too tight, pulling the top thread through the quilt and creating eyelashes. |
Several samples later with no better results, I changed to 50-weight Metler cotton in grey-blue (#0789.) Random straight lines with a walking foot cover the quilt. I considered following the flare of the patchwork but decided I wanted more uniform widths across the quilt. I started quilting about two-inches apart then came back and filled in. This keeps the quilt better aligned. The "cross angle" didn't look good when the spacing was wider; however, it improved tremendously with closer quilting. It's not as close as matchstick; more like channel quilting.
Remaining decisions:
Enjoy the day, Ann
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| Round Robin Improv quilt detail |
Remaining decisions:
- Would you keep the quilt edges like this or straighten them out?
- Would you choose a regular wrapped binding or knife-edge binding that won't show at all on the front?
Enjoy the day, Ann