Two Improv Round Robins

It's certainly been a busy month with a couple of trips, visiting friends, several quilt meetings, and the PIQF show. Most of my quilting time was spent on the Lobster Boat quilt for my grandson-to-be.

CQFA (California Quilt and Fiber Artists) is a smaller group that takes turns leading workshops. Round Robin from Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters was suggested.  Because I'd previously taken this workshop from Sherri Lynn, when the day arrived I was the leader. What a great day we had! Each top passed to seven quilters. Their personalities show in the sections they added.

Here's the top I took home.

CQFA Improv Round Robin 

My signature fabric, which I used on each top, was the green and yellow large moon print next to the orange feathers. I like the way everyone balanced additions to this quilt. The two red columns are especially strong and pleasing to me. My one regret is that I grabbed leftovers rather than pulling fabric. These small scraps are wonderful but each was already ruler cut the widths you see in the quilt. Very rectangular piecing rather than freehand cut. Live and learn.

Two weeks later the Book Study group met for our Round Robin. We stopped after the first round to take a quick photo of our beginnings. (Thanks for the reminder, M-N!) Clockwise from my Finnish flags in the bottom right: Tami, M-N, and MK.

MK shared results from a Floating Squares workshop she took with Sherri Lynn. It's a good read.

Bron gave me the lavender and cream print I used in the HSTs and as my signature fabric. You can see it best at the bottom of the last photo. The selvedge says it's a 1998 Nancy Crow design. How styles have changed!

First round of Book Study Round Robin

We completed six rounds which meant we worked on some tops twice. The results are below.

Finished Round Robins for me and MK

Finished Round Robins for Tami and M-N

Our next Ad Hoc Improv Quilters Linkup will be November 24. It's always the last Tuesday of each month. We hope you will join us with a link or simply come to read the fabulous posts from other improv quilters.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Round Robin Improv Quilted

Next in the queue is the Round Robin Improv quilt from a workshop with Sherri Lynn Wood. Several anonymous people worked on this top which I think turned out beautifully.

 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.

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.

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.

Round Robin Improv quilt detail

Remaining decisions:

1. Would you keep the quilt edges like this or straighten them out? 
2. Would you choose a regular wrapped binding or knife-edge binding that won't show at all on the front?

Previous posts about this quilt:

1. The day of the Round Robin workshop here.
2. In progress plus a link to all the quilts from the workshop here.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Round Robin Improvisational Quilt Results Posted

Remember the Round Robin Improv class I took with Sherri Lynn Wood? As usual, I didn't have my camera. But Sherri did and posted the photos on her blog. (https://daintytime.net/2014/09/25/improv-valley-association/)Take a look.

None of the additions were borders, as usually happens with a Round Robin. Instead we tried to "expand the conversation" for each quilt we worked on. I still enjoy seeing the sections I added to these quilts.

My Round Robin Improv quilt

I've appliqued a few more circles on this top. It's ready to sandwich and quilt. But that may not happen till after the New Year.

Enjoy the day! Ann

Round Robin Improvisational Quilt

The Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association hosted Sherri Lynn Wood for a lecture and workshop last month and I was fortunate enough to take her class. She taught at previous QuiltCons and will again in 2015. What a wonderful teacher! We all learned so much from her unique perspective of quiltmaking. Her idea that improvisation is a score to be riffed rather than a pattern to be followed is particularly enlightening. Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters, her first book, will be available from STC Crafts early next year.

Here's my top at the end of the Improv Round Robin workshop. It started with the dark blue, dark red and grey at the bottom right. I pieced that section to open a conversation before passing it randomly to eight different quilters. Each of them combined a bit of their fabric with mine to expand the discussion. Time was very limited; Sherri repeatedly reminded us to re-center ourselves. We needed it. I've rarely been so wound up in a class. (Engrossed or involved, yes; but not wound tighter and tighter. Perhaps it was lack of sleep.)

Improv Round Robin quilt top at the end of the day

We each brought a box of "well-curated" fabrics. I just grabbed leftovers from Steam Punk along with a few pieces from the scrap bag.  Here's where I planned to start. It's probably eight yards - way too much for this project. I may be wrong but I improvise from scarcity rather than abundance.

Fabrics originally pulled to make the Improv Round Robin quilt

During our opening discussion, Sherri suggested winnowing our fabrics further and gave a range of two to one hundred fabrics. Then she said, "But no one's ever used just two." That was all the prodding necessary. I selected the dark blue and grey because each was more than 1.5 yards. The dark red was my signature fabric which I kept and added to each quilt I worked on. Sherri may have been a bit concerned about this extreme position when she suggested I add a few more fabrics with similar values. So I put the three on the right into my box also. I expected limited choices would be easier for everyone but found out it was harder. By the way, the photo above was taken before the workshop but the one below was taken after. That's all the fabric I had left.

Final fabric selection for Improv Round Robin quilt 

This quilt actually contains a fabric from eight other quilters. Oddly enough, one had a dark red while another had a dark blue that were both similar to the ones I'd used. The fabric with the large dots was a lovely addition which expanded the conversation into green and pink as well as repeating circular patterns. I really admire the way someone brought bits of blue and red into a very quiet grey section at the top. At the end of the day it looked a bit like an A-line skirt. How delightful!

When I got home I wanted to square it up but maintain the skirt view. I thought about framing it with one piece of fabric but that didn't seem true to the improvisational spirit. Instead I made a rule to use only scraps still in the box or from my scrap bag. No hunting around for more. 

Improv Round Robin quilt top after squaring up

Except for one, the inner border pieces on both sides were found like that and chosen because they filled the space very well. That "one" was a paper pieced section of red, green and black that didn't work in my watermelon quilt and had foundered in the scrap bag about ten years. When I put it behind the final hole it found a home. I marked it with chalk and cut it at that odd angle. I pieced the two strips that were cut from each side into the bottom. Do you see them? Don't they look wonderful?

I pinned the blue on the right side first and planned to use it on all sides. But then the red floral caught my eye. It had been used to make Steam Punk centers so it was full of holes. The dark section made it long enough. It opens and brightens the quilt as well as bringing the scale up. Now that yellow circle on the blue has friends.

The leftover circles are the final touch. I think they reinforce all the beautiful dots. And they won't languish in the scrap bag. 

Enjoy the day, Ann