Quilting with Timna Tarr

Yesterday, I spent the day at a workshop run by the Merrimack Valley Quilters Guild.  The workshop was led by Timna Tarr. The project was improvisational piecing.

Improvisational piecing can be difficult, even scary for quilters.  We are accustom to precisely measuring and stitching our pieces together. With improvisational piecing, you don’t.  There is no measuring. No precision. It’s just cut and sew.

Timna gave us some piecing suggestions to start with.  Triangles, wonky log-cabin and nine patch blocks, curved piecing and strip piecing.  We made block sections, then arranged and assembled them.

To give the quilt top consistency, we started with 3 fabrics of the same colorway, a light, medium and dark. These fabrics should be solids or read as solids.  Always using a some of these fabrics in each of the blocks, then filling in between the blocks with more of the original fabrics, unifies the piece.

I was able to complete one  and a half quilt tops.  The second one just needs borders.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Timna’s suggested giving yourself a rule as a guide for choosing fabrics. This tip inspired me. The first one I used beige fabrics to start then added the green, then the brown.  The second was blue with orange.  As I was pulling orange scraps, some had bright pink so that color was incorporated.  Now to get them quilted.

Have you ever tried improvisational Piecing? Did you enjoy it?

C