This small quilt was made after a workshop with Nancy Purvis who gave us instruction in how to create improv type half square triangles in any size. It was her quilt that was a sensation on instagram and Pinterest among other social media in 2016. She was invited to present a day workshop with the DC Modern Quilt Guild. I think it was her first or second workshop ever for quilting techniques. It really got me inspired to work with improvisational quilting ever since. We learned this technique to take a bunch of squares and layer them then cut them and sew the pieces back together in a variety of HST of all sorts of sizes. Then the fun really started when I got home and began trying to make them fit into a useable form that was interesting to my eye. I decided to use a red/orange batik backing fabric by Allison Glass that was a nice warm balance to this intense contrasting top. I used red worsted wool to tie it together instead of quilting. It was the first and last time i did this as it was so hard to pull that wool through the batting and fabric layers which made my fingers hurt… but I completed this one and they still work.
I have not posted a blog about anything since my computer died back in 2016 and this post was waiting when I got back this past year to try and catch up now on an iPad with a very nice keyboard. So happy to have a real keyboard to type. Only using my iPhone over the last years saw me spending too much time online in social media.
This shows the finished quilt before I washed and tumbled it to felt the red worsted wool ties.
Label Hand embroidery to tell the quilts origin story
HST improv quilt finished 65” x 41” finished
Label on the rear gives credit to Nancy for the inspiration and lesson.
Anne from DCMQG with Nancy Purvis at her machine during our workshop doing HST
Nancy’s quilt that inspired me to take her workshop
It is made with a very dark blue and off white cotton solids. Then she used a table top machine to do her straight line quilting.
Nancy showing us an improvisational log cabin technique that is my go to for filling in spaces on improv quilts now seven years later.
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