You’ve probably heard all you care to about whether or not to prewash fabrics before including them in a quilt. I’ve gone both ways from time to time and settled on a middle ground: I treat batiks with Retayne and often do not wash regular printed fabric unless it is intensely colored.

But every once in a while there’s a shock…

I always put a Color Catcher in when I prewash fabric, and it does a great job of picking up any stray dye in the wash.  So I was very surprised to see the spots shown above on my sheets!  (At least I had the sense not to prewash that fabric with my husband’s dress shirts!)

Here’s the fabric:

It’s from a major manufacturer and came from a quilt shop.  I just decided to prewash because the color is so intense.

I washed this 3-yard cut 3 times, and here are the 3 color catchers:

Finally, I gave up on the prewash and treated it with Retayne.  (Retayne wash requires my tea kettle and a bucket, since water temp needs to be 140 and tap water is too far below that.)  I’m still going to rub this fabric hard with a wet cotton swab to test for colorfastness before I use it in a quilt!

So, do you prewash your fabrics?

I’m doing a trunk show focused on improvisation for the Heart of the Triad Quilt Guild tomorrow–please come if you’re in the North Carolina Triad area. To help me update my talk, this post is focused on some of my favorite ways to improvise in quilting. .

The first time I recall improvising was about 20 years ago when I had scraps left from this quilt (made while we lived near Pennsylvania Amish country):

I combined the scraps with yellow and just sewed them together in strips, then blocks, to make a quilt for the friend who helped me choose colors for the Amish quilt.

Improv quilt blocks I made about 10 years ago

Combining scraps from a single project, sometimes with the addition of another fabric for “spark”, remains one of my favorite ways to improvise.  I no longer cut the scraps into strips; I just start sewing.

Whirlwind, my 2014 Quilt Alliance challenge quilt, finished 20″ x 20″

The quilt above won a judge’s choice award, possibly because some of the pieces in it finish as small as 1/4″.

Another favorite way to improvise a design is by modifying a traditional block.  Sometimes I cut off part of it, sometimes I stretch or distort it, sometimes I scatter the pieces around.  Here are a few examples.

Rising Star, made for the Quilt Alliance TWENTY contest in 2013, finished 20″ x 20″

Zippy Star I

I have done a number of things with those pesky orphan blocks (blocks left over from previous projects).  I swear they multiply when I’m not looking 😉  One option I like is to cut them into circles and applique them onto a different background:

This also works for quilt tops I don’t like once they are made:  This top

Became this:As a final example, I had a quilt that was quilted, and bound, and I STILL didn’t like it.

This one had to be cut up and made into placemats!

I cut it up into place mats, where it worked out just fine:

Of course, there are many more ways to improvise in quilting.  My plan is to try them ALL!

What are your favorite ways to improvise?

I’ve made quilts in series before, including this series of 12″ square quilts inspired by Gwen Marston’s work and the refrigerator quilts by Bev Mannes.

This experiment led to a larger quilt in the style of Gwen Marston:

Cherrywood Toss, 2016.

And this small quilt, made for the Quilt Alliance annual contest:

“Gwen Visits the Farm” is the quilt I made for the Quilt Alliance contest

Although I didn’t think of it as a series at first, I’ve made a many-years-long series of scrap quilts, including these:

Donation quilt from single-color scrap blocks

Scrap quilt made with strips that finish 1″ wide

Smaller pieces make a quilt with more triangles

Improv orphan blocks

More recently, I was inspired by an article by Jill Jensen in Quilting Arts Magazine. You can find a similar article here on the Quilting Company blog.  I also bought a new (to me) book:

Visual Guide to Working in a Series, by Elizabeth Barton

It’s an art quilt book, but I consider all my quilts art, including the bed quilts.

I decided to make a series of blocks rather than a series of quilts this time, trying out various improvisational techniques.

I plan to use this collection of fat eights from Cotton & Steel:

After auditioning several options, I selected royal blue for a solid to go with them.  It’s in the upper right corner of the picture.

Here are the first 4 blocks.  My theme was triangles, and I started by making a strip set:

I trimmed each block to 6-1/2″ wide; the length is random

I’m going to make a set of blocks every month until I either get tired of it or run out of fabric.  To be continued 😉

I am away at a retreat this week, so here, at last, are more of the wonderful quilts from the Vermont Quilt Festival.  I know, it’s been 3 months, but they’re still great quilts!  Most are art quilts, meaning they have no likely use to keep anyone warm, but I enjoyed the innovative techniques used in them.

Party Lanterns (detail) by Jean Potvin. The strips are about 1/2″ finished!

Haley’s Concept by Bruce Harmon

Zoo Bound by G Wong. This was made for a niece going to college!

Take A Left at the Wall and Keep Going by Lois Nial. This was one of my favorites.

Kimimila by Beverly Cook. This quilt is round, and looked like stained glass.

Sunny Day Evolution by Sharon Tier

Branches 5: Big Branches by Lee Sproull

Piece of Cake by Ann Feitelson

This Way Up by Jen Sorenson

Clinging to the Edge by Irene Roderick

And I did get a little bit done on the triangle quilt this week.  Here it is so far:

I can’t decide whether the light blue is too light or not.  It may be clearer either way when there are more blocks.

I’ll be teaching two fun classes between now and Christmas (yes! It is coming!) at Studio Stitch in Greensboro, NC.

The first, scheduled for Saturday, November 3, is a pattern called “Frosty Flakes” from Sew Special Designs.

This is the quilt including border

I actually made this half size just by reducing the patterns for the snowmen by 50% on my copier. It makes a good child’s quilt or wall hanging at this size. The full size pattern is lap size.

Here’s a photo of just the center so you can see the cute blocks better

The other class is the place mats you’ve already seen.  I made them from the shop’s current collection of Christmas fabric, but they are quick and easy so I often make them from other fabrics to have on hand for hostess gifts.

If you’re near Greensboro, come join us at Studio Stitch!

The Vermont Quilt Festival, which I attended in June, was wonderful, as usual. Here are a few of my favorites of the more traditional type.

Maine Coast, by Lynne Rainen

Port Kent Beauty, by Alyce Fradenburg (who is from Port Kent, NY)  I like how she put black triangles at the top to give the design a point there.

We Are Stardust, by Gladi Porsche

Twinkle Twinkle Little Tumblers, by Sharon Shea Perry. There are 3328 tumblers in this quilt, and they are tiny!  I love how she made the border darker.

Night Sky, by Joan Duffy. This was eye-catching and beautifully pieced.

Barnum & Bailey, by Daisy Dodge. This had many TINY pieces!

Detail of Barnum & Bailey. Those HSTs finish 1/2″ square!

Buzz Saw, by Bonnie Morin. Look at the detail below!

As always, there were several special exhibits, including quilts by the teachers and some modern favorites from the last QuiltCon.  More on those later!

I have been saving my husband’s worn out dress shirts for years to use the fabric for quilting. They are too worn at the collar and elbows for him to wear to work, but there is plenty of good fabric left for quilts. I made one quilt from them a year or so ago and used the pockets and plackets for interest.
A friend gave me a nice stack of shirt fabric that she had acquired from a custom shirt maker as discarded samples.

The “Trail Mix” quilt from All People Quilt has been on my to-do list for years, and I decided it would be perfect for these shirt fabrics.  (The pattern is free; you can click on the name and link to the page.)

I’ve made the first two types of block and have arrived at time to make the blocks that provide the accent rows of tiny blocks.  I don’t think I have a shirt bright enough to make these accents stand out, so I’m considering solids from my stash.  Any opinions about which would work best?

Rust tone-on-tone

Mottled soft red

Solid red

Solid yellow

Solid Orange

Thanks for your advice!

This marks the beginning of my sixth year of blogging about quilts. To celebrate, I’ve upgraded to a paid plan so you shouldn’t see ads when you view my blog. I don’t ever take advertising or affiliate links, but I was on the WordPress free plan, so they were allowed to put ads on my pages. Those ads should be eliminated now.

Mini-Quilt for Jill

Finished Gypsy Wife

Scrap quilt made with strips that finish 1″ wide

Floral Fantasy, a “one block wonder” quilt

Mount Pisgah

I’ve also updated my picture to a more recent one! The even better news is that you were spared the 5 years of changes in hairstyle that came between the old one and this one 😉

As I start the next year, I’d like your opinion. What would you like to see/read about on the blog?  Please leave me some comments!  And thanks for reading–I appreciate my readers, and many of them have become friends.

First, let me say that the 505 spray that stained my quilt came out entirely with dry cleaning, just as the manufacturer suggested.

Remove 505 with dry cleaning

Last weekend I taught my “Scrappy New Year” quilt at Studio Stitch in Greensboro, NC.  Everybody brought stacks of scraps cut into strips of various widths.

We joined the strips into strip sets.

Then we cut the strip sets into  1-1/2 inch strips and assembled the pieced strips into blocks.

The blocks varied in size and shape, depending on the choice of the designer.

And there was at least one alternate layout for rectangular, rather than square, blocks. When the pieced strips alternated with solid strips the blocks went faster.

Eventually, everyone will have a quilt something like this:

Scrap quilt made with strips that finish 1″ wide

And as a last fun part of the weekend, I got to see a beach bag I made for our daughter several years go.

How was your week?