Bloom

Free piecing is one way to improvise. I am currently participating in Tonya's House, Home and Pantry Quilt Together and this is my piece, 'Bloom'. I started with a picture in my head of a vase with flowers. I did some rough sketches (i'd show you, but long ago they were trashed), and then I started playing with scraps...sewing and cutting.
I got stuck on piecing the log cabin flowers (those are improvised too) and Tonya made this great drawing to help me think it through and I came up with this.
After I had the vase and flowers done it needed something else, and Tonya also does these great pieces with free pieced letters, so I had a go at it. I did all of them on my own until I got to the m. I needed help and Tonya had just that. She has tutorials to help you figure out letters...not patterns, just ideas to help and the techniques she uses.

I'm in love with this piece. My only disappointment is that I used flimsy muslin as the background fabric...it did start out as an experiment. I wasn't expecting to be successful. I need to work on that!
Tonya has a great blog and is a great resource for free piecing. You might want to check it out.

Project Improv is in full swing. If you are participating your name should be on my sidebar, you should have received a pdf file with details of the project and an invitation to the flickr group. If you haven't, drop me an email and I'll get you fixed up. Folks are already posting pictures of their work. Amazing!

Tammy in Texas, I need your email address when you have a minute.

There are many people to thank who have supported me in getting this going. Amandajean and Stephanie helped me clarify my idea for the project. Thanks ladies. Alissa started the flickr group and helped me learn to be an administrator. Way to go Alissa! Peg helped me think through so many things I hadn't even considered like batting and backing and donations etc. etc. Thanks for putting on your thinking cap, Peg! Michele for proofreading for me when my brain was fuzzy from entering a hundred emails and Kate for making me laugh. I hope I didn't forget anyone. Thanks!

Jackie of Canton Village Quilt Works and her friend Pam have volunteered to quilt our charity quilts on their longarms for FREE. Is that not the most generous offer of help and Jackie is also helping get batting for our quilts at a great price. Thanks ladies. I'm so excited for the quilts to come together.

Lastly, guess what? I received an email from Denyse Schmidt. Yup, that's right. Should I bronze it? Seriously, she's following our project and hopefully will be checking in once and awhile. Thanks for the support, Denyse!

Now, off the computer and on to sewing!