Global Village

Recently I was commissioned to make a table runner similiar 

to the one above, which I made as a class sample.

I didn't want to sell the sample,

so I started making houses with fabrics that would be special to the buyers.

Here is the finished table runner. It measures about 18 by 40 inches

I used a variety of greens for the trees, and text and novelty fabrics for the houses.

Above are a rainbow house, a love house, and a prayer house.

And a music house, an African hut, a peace and writing house, and a rose house.

Here are the two of them side by side.

The bottom one is my class sample, and I regretted that it was wider than width of fabric,

which necessitated piecing the back.

So I made the new one a bit narrower, since 40 inches is plenty long for a table runner.

I love making wonky houses and trees,

and I plan to teach another class on this in fall.

Let me know if you are local and would be interested in signing up.

Revisiting a UFO and teaching improv

Sometimes quilts weigh on my mind,

like this unfinished log cabin I started in Jan. 2017.

I had a vision of blue starbursts in my head,

but I'm not happy with the contrast.

I used two jelly rolls with some additional fabrics,

and now I'm rethinking the whole project.

I have 36 14 inch blocks, so I may go with the furrow layout on the top.

The biggest obstacle for me is quilting it, since I don't usually machine quilt such large quilts.

And I'm quite hesitant to pay someone else to quilt it when I don't really like the quilt at all.

Recently I taught improv quilting at a local quilt shop.

This was my first real teaching gig, 

but I've been making quilts with improv techniques for more than a decade.

I was inspired early on by books by the late great Gwen Marston,

and by online sewalongs with Tonya Ricicci, who doesn't hang out in blogland anymore.

The piece with the green border is an improv village on a table runner.

I used lots of scraps and the same background fabric.

I showed my students how to make trees and a variety of houses

and they all did great.

I showed them some of my improv house quilts too.

The one at the left is from 2009, and uses log cabins and wonky houses in a variety of sizes.

The made the one at the right last year for a new baby.