I'm following Carole Lyles Shaw's online course on curves and improv. Which is basically freehand cutting Drunkard's Path blocks, joining them:
and cutting them up, rearranging and sewing together:
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| four cuts made |
and repeating several times:
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| finished 16.5" block, umpteen cuts made! |
Along the way Carole gives tips, making her own blocks and sharing her decision making process. There are no patterns, or instructions, simply suggestions and guidance. While I'm new to neither DP blocks nor improv I am learning a lot, both from the recorded videos and from the Zoom sessions with Carole and other participants. Principally, I have lost my fear of cutting up my sewing! Now I have to learn when to stop! (cutting, that is, not sewing!)
So far I have made four blocks:
Viewed like this it's rather a jumble, but it's a learning process! Top left is the most recent.
Bottom right was the first one I made and I like it most, but after I'd made it I found it rather overwhelmingly dark and lacking in light fabric. Then I changed from Kona Iron, to Kona Silver grey as the "background fabric" for the rest of the blocks - dark medium and light assured. I've since realised I could have achieved that by other means, so I think the lime green and shocking pink will play a prominent role in another quilt, with a dark background! Meanwhile I'm continuing with the course as every step in every block is different, with surprising results.
I love the liberated feeling of improv, but don't always find inspiration, so its nice having someone set parameters for me. I find that too in the challenges here, although the hourglasses ran aground fairly quickly. Probably a question of overthink! I'm good at that! Here's the positive: I will return to them, and probably cut them up to be unrecognisable: fractured hourglasses! But not just yet!
Keep safe, and healthy
Happy sewing
Marly.
6 comments:
I find improv a little hard too. Maybe I overthink it. I don't know. But, it takes a lot more work (for me) than just following a pattern. These cut-up blocks are fascinating.
I'm loving these circles! The first one that you showed (in that perfect progression of photos, btw) kind made me go "what? why?" But then it started making sense. Though I can't say just what I like or why it makes sense to me.
I like the four complete blocks together and can see a nine patch quilt coming along beautifully. You have enough green/orange in each that they all play well together. I find myself going back to the last picture and finding some interesting surprises. Oh yeah, I LIKE this!
One blessing of this time is the new online classes. It helps to have someone else's input when we are trying new things. Thanks for sharing your progress.
It really is great fun to dive into improv. occasionally with some parameters already in place. Great job figuring these out! They look quite fun.:)
nice..very nice ox
These look like fun. A course lets you try new techniques but gives a little bit of helpful structure too. I think improv is much like any other way of working - the more you do it, the easier and more natural it becomes.
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