Night & Day Improv Sampler

Here's my second entry for the Blogger's Fall Quilt Festival!  Thanks to Amy for hosting what has become a welcome tradition for quilt bloggers every fall and spring.

This is a small quilt made as a sample for a new workshop I'll be teaching across Canada in the coming year. I'm really excited about the workshop - it's going to be a lot of fun. I've entered this quilt in in the Modern Quilt Category for the festival.

Night and Day, 18 1/2" x 23"

Made entirely from Oakshott Colourshott shot cottons.

I call the quilt Night & Day for a couple of reasons: first, the obvious black and white monochromatic colour scheme. Secondly, the fact that improv construction is so different from traditional piecing. Also, the format of this class is going to be very different from most workshops I teach.  However, similar to Temperature Check and Structural Improv, every student will come out of the class with their own unique quilt design.

The workshop is called Speed Date with Improv. It will be a face-paced one day workshop for the improv-curious quilter who's ready to let go and work without stressing, obsessing or second guessing!  There won't be time for worrying about perfection as students make their way through "dates" with several different improv piecing techniques. Later, we'll play on the design wall, jigsawing our pieces together into a fun abstract compositions.  The goal is not to create a masterpiece, but rather have fun exploring line, shape and creative expression. The resulting quilt functions as a sampler of the techniques learned and could inform larger work in the future.

To keep things very simple, I quilted irregular lines both horizontally and vertically in something I like to think of as "wonky waffle quilting".  I marked the lines with a ruler and hera marker so that while they are not parallel, they are pretty straight. I enjoy the look of open shapes at the edges, so I faced this little quilt instead of framing everything in with a binding. Plus, I love the fun tool print with the polkadot facing on the back!

For a great facing tutorial, check out my friend Terry's blog.

The first workshop kicks off right here at home with the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild in November. I will be sure to share results here on Poppyprint!  

Have a look around the rest of the Blogger's Quilt Festival. Other categories include Original Design, Modern, Traditional, Art, Hand-quilted, small, medium & large, ROYGBIV, Scrappy, Applique, and Home machine quilted. Voting for your favourites starts next week.