I love improv patchwork so much. Right now, I’m loving sharing it with my new Improv Patchwork class. Working through these techniques with a group is incredibly inspirational. I’m learning so much and having so much fun seeing what everyone creates. I made two blocks during class this week that I’m really excited by. Both of them are outside my usual colour palette, which makes them even more awesome to me.

I’m especially smitten with the pink and cream block. I can’t stop staring at it. I’m pretty sure this is the start of something bigger.

Can you believe how perfect this gift is? This cedar bead necklace came in a cedar jewellery box, both designed and handmade by Andrew. The necklace is so beautiful. I just love the lightweight feel of these faceted cedar beads. The box matches the other jewellery box Andrew made for me a couple years ago. The wood is reclaimed and has so much character, you can just stare at it and see a new detail every time. It’s pretty amazing to watch Andrew explore wood as a medium. Especially since he almost exclusively uses reclaimed or scrap wood.

Like I said perfect gift.

I was thinking about herringbone the other day and wanted to see what it would look like in patchwork. I’m going to try some more, but I’m liking this idea a lot! This version is very random, but perhaps more organized and with high contrast fabrics, next time? This block is still a work in progress. We’ll see where it goes next.

I very rarely plan much when I sew improv patchwork. I know that some people will draw sketches beforehand. But I really like to just see what happens. Sometimes when I set out to create something specific, something totally different will happen. Like the last block, for instance. That was not even close to what I was trying to do, but sometimes you just have to listen to what the fabric tells you to do. There are so many happy surprises with improv.

p.s. Look for my improv patchwork class coming in January. (!!!!!)

Here’s my improv patchwork from Sewing Summit. Half the scraps for this came from Amanda and the other half came from Lizzy, who let me & Katherine dip into her collection for some bits we wanted for our stash. I really like sewing with other people’s fabrics. It’s fun to sew with fabric that I might not normally use.

I’ve been a bit afraid of free motion quilting. Okay, ALOT afraid. So far all the machine quilting that I’ve done has been straight lines, using a walking foot. I mean, after all the time that I’ve spent putting together a quilt, the last thing I want to do is ruin it with some bad quilting. This is why I knew I had to sign up for the Free Motion Quilting class at the Sewing Summit.

Our teacher, Alison, showed us lots of examples of different styles of quilting and quilts that she had done. She gave us some tips and gave demos on her technique. Then we just had to go for it. We had quilt sandwiches to practice on. This is definitely the best way to learn. Practice on little fake mini quilt sandwiches! There was a lot of wonky stitching on my practice mini, but I really liked the look of the overlapping square pattern, so I kept practicing that pattern over and over.  Finally, I just decided to just go for it. SCARY! If you look really closely, this quilting is hardly perfect. But it was really exciting to finally let go and stop worrying about how perfect my little squares are. From a distance, it looks pretty good. Of course, now I want to do all kinds of free motion. I’m going to stick to mini quilts for now, but I can’t wait til I am ready to tackle a larger quilt. Bring it on FREE MOTION!

Oh boy. What an awesome week we had with Lizzy House last week! I can’t believe that it’s over already. I took a crazy amount of photos so I’ll be posting those over the next few days in batches, starting from the end and working back to the beginning.

We ended the week at the workroom with Lizzy’s Champion Ribbons class. What a perfect and fun Saturday morning we had. This project is pure genius, using bits of felt, ribbon, buttons and any other craft materials you’ve got lying around. Plus, I’ll take any excuse I can get to make a trip to Mokuba to buy fancy trims. What’s great about this project is that it is so playful and relaxing. We sat around the huge table together, making a mess, cutting felt, turning ribbon and chatting away.

To add to the festive mood, Andrea made a delicious spice cake that she decorated with mini bunting made from Lizzy’s fabric. So sweet! It was so pretty but we didn’t seem to have any problems gobbling it right up.

I ended up making six Champion Ribbons. My favourite part was going through my scrap bin and finding the perfect bit of fabric to cover a button with for the centres of my ribbons. I made a few for myself and a few for gifts. I think these make a special gift and I can’t wait to award some special people in my life with a Champion Ribbon. I already know I’ll be making more ribbons very soon, I spent the other night organizing all my trims into mason jars so I’ll be ready for another ribbon making session.

No matter how busy I am, I make sure that I carve out some time in my week to sit down and do some crafting for myself. Especially right now, these little projects are keeping me sane!

You might recognize this as a Sunday Patchwork project. I had decided that the pieces needed to be hand quilted and made into a Hoop Travel Bag. I started the hand quilting back in March and I was finally able to finish it off when we went to the cottage.

Although I own a hoop bag already, this was the first one that I made. I had trimmed down my patchwork pieces to the final dimensions of the outside pieces in the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery pattern and followed the instructions from there. It came together really quickly and was so fun to make. It took me just over an hour to construct the pouch and I was almost giddy when I finished it. Sewing is good therapy.

I am doing more and more handwork. It’s perfect for trips, stitching outside, watching movies and hanging with friends. Right now I’ve got an embroidery sampler project, a cross stitch project and an English paper piecing project in progress. Ideally, I’d like to have a hoop bag for each of these. So, I think I need to make myself at least two more. (an extra one for good luck)

I took Victoria Day as a sewing day to catch up on working on my Machine Foundation Paper Piecing homework. I have just one more house to do this week before I sew it together and add my border before Saturday’s final class. I can’t wait to see them all come together. Take a look at how different and awesome Agnes’ and Suzanne’s came out. There is so much personality in everyone’s little houses!

I really miss doing patchwork if I don’t get to do any for even just a couple weeks. I started taking our new Machine Foundation Paper Piecing class on Saturday. We’re making an incredible wall quilt designed by Johanna. I have been wanting to learn paper piecing FOREVER.

Sunday night, I tackled some of my homework for the class and completed the first row of houses, plus one tree. It felt great to get back into my Sunday routine, to make a mess with fabric bits everywhere and to sew until the wee hours of the morning. This technique is a ‘game changer’. It totally unlocks a whole new world of patchwork and I’m so excited by it. Not only can you show off your fussy cutting, but you can showcase awesome scraps of fabric with these intricate designs.

If you want to see some incredible paper piecing possibilities, check out this, this, this and this! I can’t even believe the awesome-ness people come up with sometimes.

I’m trying to tackle my spring cleaning bit by bit. In this case, it’s keeping all my bits of fabric organized! A few months ago, I spent an entire night going through the mess of my scrap bin at home. I ironed, sorted everything by colour and then tied them up in bundles. Having an organized scrap bin has been the key to all the improv piecing I’ve been doing. I almost exclusively use scraps for my improv work. Now that my scraps are organized, I can grab the bundles of colours I want to work with and away I go!

My scraps are pieces I’ve collected from my clothing, quilting and other projects. Lucky for me, my scrap bin is also filled with scraps I’ve collected from many of YOU! If you’ve left behind a little bit of fabric at the workroom after a class that I didn’t have, I may have snatched it for my collection. Some of the smallest pieces are just two inches long and I have to say, I totally feel justified in keeping tiny pieces of very ‘rare’ or coveted fabrics.

Do you guys keep a scrap bin at home? Do you obsessively save every little bit?

The other part of my spring cleaning is my actual fabric stash. I’m partway through organizing, ironing and folding that. Once I’m done, I’ll take some photos to share with you. Fabric photography is one of my favourite things to do! (Can you tell?)

I’ve been patchworking every Sunday, but for the last ten weeks have been focusing on my Quilt Sampler 2 homework. The class just finished last Thursday, so I’ll post up photos of our finished quilt tops this week.

Yesterday, I spent a few hours ironing and organizing my fabric stash at home. It’s gotten a bit messy and also spread out over the house, so I wanted to wrangle it into one location. It’s so fun to re-discover forgotten fabrics and make things all tidy. Handling all my fabrics, really got me inspired to work with some with new colour palettes.

I’ve really been in the mood for some improv patchwork, so last night I started by using some scraps of purple nani IRO double gauze and threw in other scraps of dark grape-y purple, navy and light blues. I wanted to keep it fairly simple, but kept adding more and more scraps. It’s hard to stop, once you get going! I built two separate, but similar blocks so that they would be the right size for me to make myself a travel hoop bag.

Tonight I’m going to baste the two blocks and start doing some simple hand quilting on them. I’ve been missing having a little hand work project, so this is going to be perfect!