What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 I'm not usually one who is inspired by nature. Strange, right? But lately I've been having fun playing with improv flowers. Earlier this year I finished this quilt, inspired by a quote from Anne of Green Gables...

Dear old world, you are very lovely and I am glad to be alive in you!

The other day I came across another improv flower I had made a while back. It was laying on my table next to some ...

 Several years ago, I added some improv quilt bits and hand stitches to a denim jacket I found at a resale shop. I've loved wearing it and get lots of compliments when I do! Since my granddaughter had admired it, I decided to make her a similar one for her birthday a couple weeks ago.

I found this improv block in my orphan block bin and it was perfect to add to the back panel! I added lots of big stitching to it which was really fun!

I even had enough of the block left over to add two ...

Remember this Mod TV Quilt...

Progress on the Mod TV Quilt

continues on Wednesdays...

A test card, also known as a test pattern or start-up/closedown test, is a television test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast.

This has been my Wednesday project

the last few weeks...

I used monofilament thread ...

I meet with my local quilt group

on Wednesdays... 

Those ...

Back in the spring, my friend Chris brought me this orphan block and said "let's do something together with this"

Until eventually we had a completed quilt top! I matchstick quilted it on my domestic machine, added some big stitches with 8 weight pearl cotton and bound it in lime green after auditioning many options...

You wouldn't think that living outside of Erie, Pennsylvania would be a center of culture. And it kinda isn't.  But it kinda is.  Really, we're within an hour or two of Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo.  Plus 3 hrs out of Toronto. As well as 2.5 hrs out of central Ohio.  Yes, you read that right ....central Ohio.   Central Ohio, for you not in the know, is a hot bed of quilting.  Not only is there a plethora of quilt stores, quilt groups, retreat spots but also there is The Dairy Barn Art Center (home to Quilt ...

 Are you ready for a new challenge prompt? Did you find time to play with prompt #1? Here's what I came up with...

 The other day over lunch my friend Chris and I were celebrating the near completion of a recent collaboration (more on that soon!) and wondering what we should do next. We tossed around lots of ideas and finally landed on a fun improv challenge. It will allow the two of us to make quilts simultaneously following the same biweekly prompts. It will be fun to see how different our quilts end up! Here's the really exciting part.... we'd love for you to play along. 

Every other Monday Chris and I will each be spinning a wheel we've ...

After 15 years of sitting in a drawer...

 the Drunkards Path Quilt Top is DONE !

Now I need to paw through the fabric

cupboards and find something

that will work for a backing...

All Drunkards Path posts CLICK HERE

View my Instagram feed HERE

LuAnn Kessi 

Playing around with some

Improv X Blocks... 

The more I make...

the better I like it.

I need more!

View my Instagram feed HERE

LuAnn Kessi 

At this point, the blocks are all

pieced together into circles...

In between trips to the hay fields,

I will come home and make a block or two

for the borders.

View my Instagram feed HERE

LuAnn Kessi 

Every year the Dutch Modern Quilt Guild organizes a Quilt Along (QAL) with a Block of the Month (BOM) and I normally don’t participate. There are various reasons for that, one being that I prefer working on my own projects. This year the guild decided to try a different ‘…of the month’, namely colors! Ohhh that sounds so liberating! No specific blocks to do, just a monthly color to use in any of your blocks or projects.

That is FUN!

That I can do!

I am adding a personal challenge on top of the color requirement. I want to ...

Time for some catching up! Back in January my pal Debbie was cleaning out her stash and gifted me a beautiful stack of improv hourglass blocks she had made last year. 

I had a wonderful time assembling them into a quilt top, adding a scrap or two of my own alone the way to make things fit. As I assembled it, I began adding appliqué dots here and there, because, why not? The Modern Quilt Guild has recently embraced Maximalism as an element of modern quilting and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to get on board. 

I attached ...

 I just realized I left you hanging. I never shared my completed Improv Triangle Sewalong quilt.... although I did share some of my process here. Well it's finished! Introducing, Triangles everywhere, all at once...

The improv triangle units were made using the process Nicholas Ball spells out in his book, Inspiring Improv. I used fabric I had painted with my gel plate and acrylic paints for the triangles and assorted teal, aqua and orange solids from my stash.

When it came time to quilt, I went a little bananas! It is all walking foot quilted on my domestic machine ...

 Well, I didn't mean to start another quilt but here we are. I can't resist Nicholas Ball's (@quiltsfromtheattic) improv triangle sew alongs, I've participated twice before (here and here) and when he announced a third opportunity to sew along with him I jumped right in.

As I told you in my last post, I've been enjoying gelli printing lately. I had a stack of fabrics I had painted and quickly decided those should be triangles...

After lots of cutting I had almost 90 triangles ready to sew! I pulled out my teal/aqua solids and ...