Improvisation - part 2

I took a second look at the "round robin" quilt I came home with from the cqfa meeting a few weeks ago. There was a large green rectangle that was drawing too much attention in the original, so I trimmed it down into smaller pieces and redistributed them. Added some more of the blue print fabric, and continued the black as a border. Need to decide how big I want it so I can finish the piecing.

Improvisation with Friends

Saturday was spent at a meeting & workshop for Contemporary Quilt & Fiber Artists (CQFA). In the afternoon nine of us did a "round robin" inspired by a chapter in Sherri Lynn Wood's new book:

We each began by selecting fabrics from our collection to set the color scheme, and made a quick pieced block from some of the fabric. A strict fifteen or twenty minute time limit kept us from overthinking the process.

Our baskets of fabric (all except one signature fabric) and the block we worked on were rotated to another person. We then added some pieced work using the fabric given to us plus our own signature fabric.

As the quilts progressed we were encouraged to see what the quilts had to say and "add to the conversation" with our own piecework. We were given a little more time with progressing rounds as larger pieces needed to be completed. Thirty minutes for the last round and to "complete the conversation".

There were no great masterpieces, but each quilt was attractive and unique, and we all had a sense of accomplishment in a relatively short time. It will be fun to add a bit more piecing to balance the design and enlarge it to the size I want.

The Grab Bag CD, Fabric Scraps, and Community Quilts

The Grab Bag CD is now available. For a minimum $10.00 donation to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause, and shipping and handling of $2.00, you can obtain a CD containing 173 inspiring photographs and artists' statements of the 59 wonderful quilts that resulted from the 2008 Quiltart Grab Bag Challenge. Complete details for ordering are here: http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/NewFiles/ACSFundraiser.html. I will be ordering mine in the next day or so, and will be looking forward to seeing all of the quilts which were made this year.

I was given a couple of bags of leftover fabric. I decided there wasn’t anything that I wanted to keep for myself. But there were a lot of nice pieces of fabric which I thoughtmy guild could use for their Community Quilts program. There were flannel pieces cut into strips, all different widths and lengths. I decided to sew the strips together to make a top for Community Quilts, and proceeded without much of a plan except to improvise as I went along. I enjoyed working with the happy bright colors. This will be completed by the guild with either tying or quilting, and will make a small girl very happy. It’s super soft and cozy too, being all flannel.

There are a lot of Christmas prints in the bag too. I might do something similar with them.