August sends kids back to school and the calendar begins to feel like fall. For a taste of fall in south Florida, we have improv leaves for this month’s block. Trying to fulfill survey requests, we have improv, low volume backgrounds AND curved piecing.
This gorgeous quilt is found on Kati Spencer’s blog, From the Blue Chair.
She provides an excellent tutorial for creating improv curves. Use it! She’s much better than I am at explaining and photography!
For color theme, I don’t think we can improve on her work for a fall quilt. Let’s use oranges, rusts, greens and golds. For background, low volume in taupes and browns. Following the tutorial, I made these (and I’m lousy at improv so it’s a very good tutorial!). They measure anywhere from 6 inches to about 12 inches. Just try to provide something you’d like to work with if you win the blocks.
Kati’s tutorial doesn’t cover adding stems to the leaves but it’s actually even easier than the leaves themselves. Grab a scrap, piece it on an angle to one side of your background and then piece it to another scrap of background.
The tutorial hint about marking the middles of your leaf and background is really useful. Pin both pieces, put them right sides together and then pin the middles to sew. IF curves scare you a little, cut your first leaf with a much subtler curve, try sewing it and then make some with deeper curves. I promise, it’s easier than it looks. Especially if you start at the middle and sew both directions as the tutorial suggests.
I flipped the second half of my leaf and sewed on the ‘opposite side’ of the pressure foot. It’s not necessary - you can simply flip the leaf over and sew with the background on top. Please press toward the leaf as the tutorial suggests. The curves lay much flatter that way. And please disregard my starch covered iron and disgusting ironing board cover. I iron a lot. A lot a lot.
~Linda
