The Endeavourers’ Reveal Day Four: Improv
I can’t believe our online quilt group, the Endeavourers, has already been together for a full year! I have loved working on our challenge themes.
This time the theme was Improvisation, and I thought I would have an easy time with that one. I have always loved improvisational quilts — here is my favorite quilt of all time:
String Circles quilt.
We have three months to make a small art quilt. I ran out of time to make my first, perfect idea, and turned to what I thought would be a quicker and easier idea — creating a flower still life with free motion quilting and fabric painting. I have used watercolor pencils and textile paints in the past, and this time I also tried acrylic inks.
Part of a sampler of different ways to use the acrylic inks.
I tried two different techniques for adding lines and colors — quilting first on the blank white fabric, and then painting the color into the quilted shapes; and doing it the other way, randomly painting on fabric first, and then stitching around the painted spots and splotches. I think the second technique worked better for me. I wrote all the details about the process on the Endeavourers’ blog here.
I applied watercolor pencils, textile paints, and acrylic inks. These colors are a little too raw for my taste — I did a little mixing, but these still remind me of colors right out of a box of crayons. The solution may be for me to add more shades of ink and paint to my supply stash. 🙂
“Dutch Bouquet.” About 19″ x 18″.
Detail of mini-quilt flower.
Another detail.
I have been wanting to get into hand-stitching more, and I enjoyed the time adding stitches and beads to this piece. I think it could benefit from more, but probably I will just take what I have learned and apply it to a new piece.
Please stop by the Endeavourers to see the other Improv pieces! And here are the participants at their home blogs:
Catherine – http://www.knottedcotton.com @knottedcotton
Janine – https://rainbowhare.com/
Nancy – http://www.patchworkbreeze.blogspot.com/
Carol – http://beadsandbirds.blogspot.com/
Barbara – https://theflashingscissors.blogspot.co.uk/
Ruth – http://benandcharlyscorner.blogspot.co.uk/
Gwen – https://textileranger.com/
Martha – www.weekenddoings.com
Julie – www.pinkdoxies.com
Maureen – https://josephinaballerina.com/
Tonia – http://allthingzsewn.blogspot.com
Kay – http://thecraftyyak.wordpress.com
Soma – http://www.whimsandfancies.com/
Fiona – http://celticthistlestitches.blogspot.co.uk/
Paula – https://paulabquilts.com/
It’s wonderfully organic and I love the depth and shadow that the free standing pieces give to it. Gorgeous colour work, beautiful quilting… I agree it’s time to stop; you could end up putting in one too many details. It makes a beautiful sampler and stimulator of ideas.
I love that idea, just looking at it as a sampler! Thank you!
Gorgeous; a lovely mixture of hand and machine stitching. I don’t think the colours are too raw, flowers are often incredibly intense and pure in colour. I love the organic shape of it too
Thank you! As we go through these themes, I am starting to see that I am interested in unusual shapes for quilts and added-on pieces. I am getting so much value from this group!
I’m so impressed. There’s so much about this I like. Some of the colors are raw and intense, and others have a lovely subtlety about them, such as the gold-through-peach-to-pink range. I agree with Kate — feel free to stop on this one and let your brain use it as a piece to stimulate more work. Good job, Gwen!
Thank you, it is fun to slowly recognize a very specific direction for my work to go in.
I get that completely. I feel it, too. Wonder where we’ll be a year from now? 🙂
I do like your piece, and thanks for showing the process too. What a fun, interesting group you have! I can imagine the inspiration you draw from each other, and I’m just a bit envious! You are a talented group!
Thanks! I am so glad to be part of this group. We just got a new member and I bet we would take more (hint hint hint). But I know you are involved in a lot of projects. You can always play along at home when you have time and the inclination!
Oh? Really?! I could be interested, I think!
I am checking in to it with Catherine, since she started the group, but she is in Great Britain so it might be a while before I hear back. But that would be awesome!
I’d love some more info. Definitely interested.
Your reveal piece is gorgeous and also I love your string circles quilt 🙂
Thanks! Just to be clear, that string circles is a vintage quilt I bought years ago — and it has inspired me many times!
Hi Gwen,Love your latest creation! I need to see it in person.I also liked Janine’s improv quilt! We were out “trick or treating” with the kids last night. If it hadn’t started pouring rain we were going to stop by! 🙂 -Liz
Yes, what a deluge! I will be glad to show you this little piece. I loved Janine’s too! We got a really good variety with this topic.
Kudos on leaving the square behind on this one. My only suggestion for colors would be to consider adding more dark values to your flowers to pair with the dark values in the leaves. I think that getting custom colors with watercolor pencils is hard, despite how easy it looks on YouTube videos.
Yes, I think you are right. Once I started getting those crayon box colors, it just kept getting brighter and darker, but not really dark enough. If I hadn’t had the group deadline, I am pretty sure I would have given up entirely, because I just wasn’t getting the pale washes I wanted, and I wasn’t willing to put in the hours to save it. I have gotten my best results with Photoshop creations printed on fabric and maybe I should just stick to that, for more subtle colors.
Gwen, this is so cool! Improv-ed indeed!
Thanks! I’m so glad you could join us this time, and I hope your shoulder improves! (My husband had shoulder surgery, and it took over a year for him to really feel back to normal, and he has heard that from friends too. Just so you don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t go quickly in your case too.)
Thank you for your encouragement, Gwen! I am at week four. The doctor said people often get discouraged between weeks 2-8 because recovery then is at its most painful. Yup. However! I am gonna try and sew the quilt border today. 🙂 m & jb
Amazing improvisational piece!
Thanks, it was fun! If you haven’t checked out the whole Endeavourers blog about this challenge, I think you might be interested particularly in this one by Ruth, because her piece has no traditional quilting cottons!
I like it as is, but certainly endorse the need for more supplies 😀
Thank you for your supply-purchasing support! 🙂
It’s interesting to me, the different approaches the others took–sort of a continuum between improv and experimentation. Some are really quite traditional and others, like you, really just let loose and had fun experimenting. I think you experimenters learned more and have more interesting outcomes–I like Fiona’s Treehouse approach a lot, too!
I liked the shape of this and the cascading flowers. Very creative and lively esp with the add-on pieces.
Thanks, it is fun to play around and not have to have a perfect finished piece!
A gorgeous idea, Gwen! Really worked well!
I didn’t see improve this way, it’s marvellous, and your paint sampler looks good enough to be the start of another quilt in itself.
I’m afraid I didn’t manage to finish on time, and am still working on my piece.
Barbara x
Thank you, Barbara! I saw your comment on the Endeavourers blog that you have had problems commenting on Blogger — me too, and I have scheduled two posts that never appeared, so I am doing something wrong there. I am sorry you are dropping out but I understand.
I have included your blog in INTERESTING BLOGS in FRIDAY FOSSICKING at
https://thatmomentintime-crissouli.blogspot.com/2018/11/friday-fossicking-9th-nov-2018.html
Thank you, Chris
Thank YOU, Chris! I will drop by and see which of your interesting links catch my eye.
I’m sure there will be a few… at least I hope so.
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