I was excited to get Maria Shell’s book Improv Patchwork a while back, because I’m an admirer of her quilts. (This picture of the book is from her website, where you can order an autographed copy of the book.)
I first encountered her work when I saw this quilt:
No Borders Treasure Map, by Maria Shell, from her blog
The quilt above appeals to me because I am OVER all the plus quilts that have been everywhere for years now, and Maria’s quilt is a fun allusion to the plus sign without being the same-old-same-old.
I read Maria’s book as soon as it arrived, She has lots of suggestions, including making strip sets and cutting without rulers. Just for starters I made a strip set.
I based the arrangement of strip sizes on the first few bars in the bar code for the word “quilt”. Yes, I’ve done something similar in the past when I used a QR code from Planned Parenthood of the Greater Northwest’s condom campaign to make this quilt. This time, with the bar code, I didn’t even try to get the whole code in, or to make it scan.
I like it! What I don’t know is what I’m going to do with it! It seems to need to incubate for a while. Any suggestions?
To be continued…
Zippy Quilts 
Incubate! Too much of my stuff does this, but until now there was never the right word! This is a technique worth a try, it looks fun!
It was fun and I have carried some of Maria’s techniques into my improv block series. Which I need to write about next week. I have a lot of things incubating, too 🙂
Great lines and color choices! Thank you for sharing my book!
Thanks for sharing your pics and for commenting 🙂
It is fabulous just as it is – for now. 😀
Thanks for visiting 🙂
How fun to take her approach. I’ve been following Maria since about the time I started my own blog. I met her in person one year when she was doing a demo for Craftsy at IQF Houston. I feel privileged to have spent time together with her when she travelled to Delaware and lectured and taught at Ocean Waves Quilt Guild Lewes DE. She is really an artist. I picked out her work from across the room at a quilt show a few years ago. Have you seen her 2019 schedule? She is going to be a superstar in the improv quilting world.
Yes, I keep an eye on her schedule, but so far no workshop near me.
I like it too!
Thanks!
Oh yes! Maria has spoken at our local SAQA meeting in the past she is so talented. That is brilliant what you did with the QR code into a quilt!
Thank you. The QR code quilt was turned down for both MQG and AQS shows but did get shown in several other venues before I gave it to Planned Parenthood.
They shouldn’t have turned it down but that it is awesome it still got out there 😀