Bordering the Square Deal and the Grand Canyon

Liking the microdot inner sashing, I was ready to sew the center together but decided to make a Churn Dash of the innermost triangles. The first attempt included very narrow pink rectangles {no photo} but quickly grew to squares for more presence. The extra pink balances the weight of the Square Deal.

The Square Deal quilt in progress: working on the borders

With that part looking good I sewed on the mermaid inner border before going to bed.

In the morning the quilt appears too dark and/or heavy with four black crossroad blocks in each corner. Reducing that to two made it much better but there's another, larger problem.

Where did the blue blocks go? The yellow, green and pink blocks in the outer border make a decent contrast with the red ones but have little relationship with the center strips and HSTs. Looking back at my original layouts, the darker border adds needed presence while the light blues make the center sing.

The Square Deal quilt in progress:
working on the outer border

So now I'm reworking the outer border.  I'm not done but it looks better.

On to the Grand Canyon

Despite a lifetime in geology, I'd never been to the Grand Canyon. So glad I made it last week, especially because it was off season {meaning the North Rim was closed.}

My visit started at the Desert View Watchtower. It highlights the Painted Desert  to the east and the beginning of the Canyon. Inspired by native art, the watchtower incorporated Pueblo designs and styles including native artwork on different levels.

The further west along the South Rim trail, the deeper the canyon and the more complex the carved channels. Eventually that appears to be all one can see. I never knew it was this size: 277 miles long, 1 mile deep, 3 miles wide.

Desert View Watchtower

Grand Canyon from Yavapai Point

Elk posed all over the park. While leaving a calf was casually nursing along the road but I couldn't get a photo. (S)he was so tall I doubt mom will allow that much longer. Two more cow elk from a harem of five grazed near the parking lot. The bull elk rested in the trees nearby.

Cow elk grazing near the
Grand Canyon Visitor Center parking lot

We're already planning our next trip. So much more to see.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Bunches of Backs and Some Improv

Doubling Down on Backs

All summer long {Beach Boys version here} I've been giddily making quilt tops with no thought to the rest of the work involved. Now reality sets in. Seven quilts in the queue and five were sewn this summer.  Fortunately I picked up several quilt batts on sale.

The next step is to make some backs. The easiest way is to lay the top on the floor and cover it with fabric. Here's a glimpse of the newest five.

Quilt backs ready to pin baste

I have very low standards for backs. As long as the fabric is good quality and the combination doesn't make me sick, it's a go. Older fabrics preferred since this is a great way to use 'em up and move 'em out. {Rawhide!}

Not the most exciting part, but an important step in the process. Now to pin, quilt and bind them.

Improv Pillow-to-be

I've been admiring Chris English on Instagram. Like Kaja he works with vintage shirts but makes pillows instead of quilts. My small group is sold on experimenting with improvisation and, although we probably don't have his exact process, we sure are having fun.

These are three shirts DH "retired", cut into strips: a faded denim-colored corduroy, a plaid, and a solid white. They are all 100% cotton but the white is also no-iron. They mean it. It hardly holds pressing at all. Hopefully, quilting will take care of that.

Clockwise from the lower left: cut shirts into strips, sewed strips into sets, cut and sewed strips together. Stopping now until our next work day.

Enjoy the day, Ann

AHIQ 2017 Invitational Begins and Linkup 17

Kaja and I plan some changes to AHIQ this year to help newer quilters embrace this movement. Even experienced quilters have written of their diffidence with improvisation so we hope you'll enjoy our Invitational, too.

We invite you join us as we start a new quilt idea {or kernel} each quarter. The first month will introduce our quarterly theme. We'll share our progress the second month as well as our improvisational ideas. There could be finished tops to share by the third month. We hope you will write and link posts on your progress monthly.

Participation in our AHIQ 2017 Invitational is entirely optional. Continue to post your current improvisational or utility quilting, too. It wouldn't be improv otherwise.


#AHIQChineseCoins

I'm starting this party with a Chinese Coins strippy quilt. While making one last year, several more ideas occurred to me, always a good sign. This design can easily combine scrap quilting and improvisation. It's friendly to both traditional and artistic styles, beginners and experienced quilters, and has more variation than you might expect.

Chinese Coins or Roman Coins probably refers to the fact that these highly developed civilizations created standard coins quite early. At its most basic, rectangular scraps sewn together like stacks of coins form columns. These are sashed with lengths of a single fabric... or not.

There are few exact instructions. The strips can be any width or height as can the sashing and these can vary from one column to the next. You can even omit the sashing. Columns can be turned vertically or horizontally. I've seen strip columns made of crazy piecing, UFO blocks, and selvedges. {Some people would classify these types as strippy quilts but let's be more general.} Repeating the sashing fabric in some of the strips gives an open grid design.


Traditional Example

This is a philanthropy quilt I made years ago. The sashing was cut from a single striped Halloween fabric. Six-inch-wide coins of various heights were sewn together randomly until they matched the length of the Halloween fabric. Everything was cut with rotary tools. Notice the same fabrics appear in each column.

Halloween Chinese Coins scrap quilt

Improvisational Example

Next is a more improvisational version of Chinese Coins. Each column contains only one of three sets of fabric. Many of these came from my scrap bag but there are also remnants and yardage in it. I used both rotary tools and scissors to cut the strips. Once the columns were sewn, I butted them together to trim overlap and determine where vertical strips were needed to fill empty spaces. More notes about this quilt on posts listed here.

Chinese Coin Improv string quilt

More Examples Across the Internet

Here are a variety of quilts that push the boundaries of Chinese Coins classification. Some are more improvisational than others. Most of them have additional aspects so their makers may not consider them Chinese Coins. I group them because they have a basic design of stacked strips in columns (or rows).

Sometimes the simplest construction highlights the most masterful quilting. These are listed first because of their straightforward {basic} construction. But make no mistake. Each of these is a masterwork of fabric, layout, and style.

Chinese Coins by Freddy Moran, used with permission. Photo by M Beach

1. Freddy Moran made this Chinese Coins with her signature colorful fabric.
2. Gina Abayan of the Philippines created her quilt from solid fabrics only. She rotated her work 90 degrees so the coins are vertical. Her columns (now rows) appear to be hand-cut but about equal width.
3. Wanda at Exuberant Color also rotated hers. She organized her printed fabrics by value so well that you can almost see the sun highlighting this quilt.
4. Cassandra Ellis lists the variety of "found fabrics" used in Katie's Quilt in her post. It's also rotated. {Am I seeing a theme?}
5. Edeltraud Ewert created one of my favorites which seamlessly crosses boundaries between traditional, improvisational, and even modern. Art at it's best.

Applique can easily be incorporated into this design.

1. All a Flutter by Judy Crane appliques trees, leaves, and birds on a Chinese Coin background. Notice the strips are divided by color and the coins are rotated again.
2. Mel Beach used a McCall's pattern to applique cheerful floral vines with cute buttons on the sashing between her Coins. As usual, her color sense delights.

If you want to try more challenging improvisation or think Chinese Coins is too simple, look at these three quilts.

Build Me a Wall by Kaja Ziesler, 2016 (Used with permission.)

1. Kaja's Build Me a Wall incorporates vertical strips (rather than sashing) and reverse applique squares into a basic columnar Coin layout. Her middle section divides into two columns at the top. Notice the visibility of each column despite the fabric repetition. The vertical seams create their own boundaries. Her borders unify the composition without encasing it.
2. Sue Kelly recently made a top based on Point Reyes seashore. Her final version reminds me of horizontal Chinese Coins with sashing strips in several colors and widths.  
3. Nettie Young of Gee's Bend created Stacked Bricks in 1928. Her quilt is composed of rotated double brick (or coins) columns that are sashed and posted.

Do you need still more inspiration? Check out my Chinese Coins Pinterest board or Google "Chinese Coins", "Stacked Coins", or "Strippy quilts."


Getting Started

Although we are approaching this improvisationally, I was planning to write instructions to aid beginners until I found Mary Johnson at MaryQuilts and HeartStringsQuiltProject already posted great directions. Her traditional version guides you through the basic construction.

1. Overview on Chinese Coins quilt.
2. Construction directions.

How much fabric? Assuming a 50"x60" quilt {without borders or sashing} and 2"x5"finished coins, you will need between 2.75 and 3 yards of fabric. Changing the coin sizes, adding sashing, or any other variations will alter the yardage requirements.

Are you in? Then go through your scraps, remnants, and yardage for the colors and fabric that speak to you. Try sewing some coin blocks or units. You don't need to sew an entire column all at once. Let's meet back here next month to share where we are, what we've discovered, and any questions we have.

Be sure to tag your photos with the hashtags #AHIQ2017Invitational and #AHIQChineseCoins so everyone can find them more easily on social media.

Enjoy the day, Ann

InLinkz removed because it was hacked.