Lessons

Lesson Info

Improv Lines & Stripes Block

This segment we're going toe work on strips in all sorts of different configurations strips could make stripes and they can also come together to make a strips and strings are essentially the same thing. We're going to make an improv string block and so that's where the string comes from but I think strips are definitely in what is this simple design method? A simple construction method and it can be so powerful and they can be a little there could be little or they could be big big makes a really great impact so I wanted to kind of go through social social show some images of some these air in all honesty these air batiks fabrics that look like stripes but you could just as easily peace fabric toe look like like these stripes as well and just what a wonderful kind of modern design element a using stripes khun b and even though they were already printed that way toe look like stripes still the pillow cover itself was improvisation lee pieced it must the same way that we had worked on i...

n a previous segment of kind of concentric squares again and these these are died stripes but you could do the same with with ah piece strips on dh these air actually little coasters but they would also make great bigger quilts and it be so easy to do and I'll have to do is have bigger stripes or bigger strips this could really mess me up we're going to do a little sample block that's kind of based on this quilt again died strips or dried straight stripes that you continue you striped fabric but we're going to create our own stripes and then put them together and much the same way that this little quilt was put together, so I'm thinking what we're going to work on that first I've made it as a black and white version and as a color version, I think we'll go ahead and step right into the color version and then if we wanted, we could make the black and white one as well but let's, you know, we've been doing a lot of black and white in some of this previous segment, so let's play with color a little bit this is going to work best with uh primarily solid, so I wouldn't I wouldn't use you know something that had a print to it in here, so I'm going to collect again, you know it's like my god, a broken record here it's my warm and cool thing, so I'm going to collect, but you don't have to I could I could easily do in fact nixed that I'm not going to do warm and cool I'm going to collect a couple of different colored salads and just go through and free hand cut some strips from myself, um, you know, they're going to be, I don't know, uh, maybe what is that? An inch and a half an inch in three chords? I don't honestly know. Um, ok, let's say that's enough that's for I think four, five and then the same with in fact, I have a smaller piece of this whenever you have a smaller piece. So much better choice because there's less work. Um, so I'm going to cut off the odd shaped bit, and just because I think I want to make a bigger block, I'm going to cut them that way too. And here, too. All right? So I've got some blue, I've got some orange, and I'm basically I mean, it's pretty simple to figure out what I'm going to do. I'm going to sew them together to make strived fabric. I'm going to make my own stripe fabric that's probably enough, and then I'm going to make some other combinations. I'm going to make a least for other combination three other combinations for a total of four, and then put those together so let's get started. So when we, um, and I mentioned this in a previous segment, but it really is important to repeat. If I'm going to sew these strips together especially since they haven't been cut to be the exact same shape or length, I'm going to need to focus primarily on the top strip I want to sew my seem a quarter inch away from the raw edge of the top strip I employed some train piecing techniques here, which is really great so rather than stop I can go ahead and so another pair together I want you all to note that I am sowing you know I wantto I don't since their differently sized I'm going to kind of center it so that I have some more options when I'm centering when I'm putting all the pieces together if they're all if I started the same spot at the top when it comes up sewing them all together and they're all kind of like this, I might actually end up having to have a much smaller little square that I want so it's best to go ahead and and I'm just about to break my liberal to center that fabric because it's going to give me the center, the strips it's going to give me a few more options when it comes time to piece the um sewn pairs together and this one too all right, so I've got three so impairs I'm gonna lay him out even before I start tio press anything and I probably won't even press it until I get through sewing the paris together just to kind of give myself an idea I can kind just finger pressed him open they want not necessarily stay all that finger pressed open but that's ok I was going to give myself a new idea of what it's gonna look like ok so that's going to be one of my little foursome and I'm going to go ahead and attach those together this is this comes together very quickly wait that's a threat and again I'm going to center it so that I have I have a bigger so I'm gonna have a bigger block that way like senator if this was a piece that I measured obviously they'd all be the same you know they don't be under no seven inches by one and a half inches and it wouldn't matter all right so I got the first one done and I'm going to go ahead and press that all those seems pressing to one side what side doesn't matter it just all seems pressing to one side when trim it down so there you know they're straight lines is opposed to a kind of a stair shift thing going on your name from this a little bit okay so that's one way to make a second one uh personally I don't want to repeat the same color so I'm going to pick two completely different colors and and work with those so maybe green and let's see okay, maybe kind of a light green and a dark green are relatively speaking ok, that should be enough to tell you truth these would look so great together the orange and the truth so maybe another time all right the same deal I'm going to go ahead and um chain piece those strips together these are pretty close to about the same length so makes it a little easier oh I said I was going to change pizza when I'm adding them on at a time okay after this I'm gonna change people I mean, you can I've never done a like a formal study too to determine one second faster than the other with the control group and everything it depends on what your change stripping change leaving. All right, so now I have some more material to make stripes with more striping material and I would have to press it at this point it seemed like nice to be able to see it so this will attach over here in this whole attach over here and I'll have another kind of grouping this is apparently attached. There are two pieces attached you're all right. Well, I'm not gonna do anything about that then one last section tow this group of stripes to my homemade striped fabric fabric in and of itself apparently it's not homemade enough you got to make your own stripes there was gold here market to create texture and different look I mean, why wouldn't you actually just go out and buy some strike could but this this is a lot more there's a lot more variation, you know, most strike fabrics or you know the stripes very regular so this'll give you a chance to create alone with more interest that way plus you if you did want to go really, really big, which I made to a sample blood this really, really big you're not gonna find striped fabric like that, so but mostly it's it's so that you can have that variety because you know, notice these you know, some of these go a little off this way some go off the other direction, you know, it's very cool they also give her that night texture and some rippling it's it adds to the excitement of the quilt. Yeah, so this is obviously substantially bigger then it's little neighbor over here so I want I want some of this driving one I wanted alternate stripes that read horizontally and strike to read vertically. So obviously at some point once that made all four, I'm gonna have to deal with the fact that I've got stripes you know that this block is just not even close to being the same size is that block but that's okay um in fact that's what you want so I'm going to go ahead and make what would be this guy's alternate, which means this drives they're also going to go this way um, and let's see, I'm going to do that with from gray, and I don't know what gray and something else that comes out of the basket, ray, and how about this pale blue? And I definitely want to save these, so if I was making an entire quote, I definitely want to save all the strips that I cut for you, you know, use at a different point in the quote I'm only making, you know, a block or so so I'm not going to you know, I'm not going really get to use those, but if I was making an entire quote like this and yes, definitely, I would say, all right, so that's a gray, I guess, is actually more of a pale green pale green see, those can come together is, well, it's very kind of thin that'll be a nice ship so that's another reason you can you khun change the with, you know, with stripes of their you know, what you see is pretty regular and those when I have them all piece together, we'll interact over here, um you know they'll be they'll read horizontally ahs well so that you know that brings up all sorts of you know, issues about now what am I going to do over there? I mean I could just add more strips I could pretend that like I it was if I was really making a quote I would start with whatever I plan this block over here to be you know? So if I was going to make this out of I don't know uh green and purple but why would it why personally I would ever use purple in unquote but let's just say let's just say I was making it for allison so it was going to have purple in it then you know, I'd probably start that over here, you know, even though it's just going to be a little block and then you could even kind of jump over I mean, it would be I don't know that I'm explaining myself but it could it could uh I'll show you it could be really cool and she would really like it because it has purple in it so we need to rethink it all right? So I can go on chain piecing mind every thread my machine I can go on chain piecing my strips here and adding so here too is is ah, you know, in a previous segment we talked about how do you decide how much fabric cor how big your blocks are going to be um I guess you know when I think about that, you know here's another example of you don't it just happens and it's almost like you need to keep in the back of your mind how big you want the cool to be you know? And then you make enough blocks to make the size quote you want to make so this is definitely it's weird what you think about when you you know when you see two colors together I don't know I see the this pale color in the other color so I started to think it's a civil war quilts you know way be just because of the gray purple ithe side did not wear lime green all right? It goes so fast this's definitely a project for you know oh man, I'm going that baby shower yeah in a few days maybe I should make that you know, that family a quilt I mean, it does call for solids, but if you have solids in your stash, you could you could whip this up super one blue because when I looked at it yesterday I was like, I don't really like that blue uh it's kind of like a uniform and now I really like it so I was like, okay, just use ever solid in the pile the interesting here your you've actually created several different colors not just too strong hold this up for three idea yeah actually so you could do to help out too so agent saying thank you in a bit of a so I'm in a color so if I see like right painting I mean and you could do you know you you think about like rugby shirts where there's like two thin stripes in the thick strife or whatever um and they might not all their money three colors in the in the shirt you know, definitely you could do that as well I hadn't thought about that, but I think that would look really good so this one was a little little finn let's add to it uh one last grace trip to our little kind of sewn grouping right and just kind trim it even by even I mean yeah, so that they're not all all over the place and actually if it's a lot better than you think it looks a lot better than I thought. So I'm going to make this last little bit um and since I'm not following my my previous you know warm cool thing it can be constructed out of any, uh, colors that I want um see, I don't have any read on it's a very famous methods he turned the pile over and over method um yeah, there you go pretty harsh together but all right, maybe this is well this is already been yes ok la times when I make a quilt if I have not a lot of time every time when I make it cool if I have started a cold it has a certain orientation I'm not ever going to turn it around tio you know oriented a different way even even if I think the block looks better than it looks better in a different kind of direction it's sort like you know fake made it that way and I don't want I don't want to mess around with that you know I feel like it's somehow dishonest all right? So let's change piece these guys together and see what we got and then what we need to do to make it work is a block no like I said if I was making this if this was my design for an entire quilt I wouldn't so much worry about adjusting it to work as one specifically blocked like we've done with a lot of of the previous block because I mean I know that over here there be another stripe block and over here there be another stripe block so I just would worry about finishing it, making it two into a square into a square a rectangle that could be added to for instance and I may just do this when we when I finished he's just figuring that out rather than worrying about whether or not whether or not I need to add I wouldn't just add a random bit because it would it would really mess up that stripe kind of pairings that I've got on so these guys up and in the black and white example you can see I mean it could work really really well as just two colors really well and they don't have to be black and white they could be um two other colors two colors closely related colors I mean colors they're close and value or they could be contrast e um so it's a really great little quilt tio to use um it just is the kind of accent quote like a decorating kind of thing you know and certainly would work is a pillow cover as well thanks fewer blocks mob all right let's let's add some let's it's a very modern feeling thing isn't the stripes to make your own stripes to d I y strike I'm going to go ahead and change all these and when I think about colors that work together I don't know that you can make any mistakes here all right let's go ahead put thes together what about you sir? Are you stripes looking um I kind of went really tiny on the circles and then I went really big ok, so I kind of the big ones and then I'm cutting them and them in half and and we're using them so let me see what four would look like together. Oh, that looks good, that looks really good, you know, just making making, expect anyone and then breaking that one off being together, yeah, all right, so let's, see what I got so far. I think I'm going to add a few more stripes to what we've got so far three or these very vibrant, potentially painfully vibrant, um, red and turquoise, and they would go. Obviously, they would be, um, vertical, which in this case, I would cut it off this way, so I probably only need to add one more before I've got enough. So in this way, it's, kind of different than the stuff we've made before, I mean beyond just the stripes in the sense that we're kind of making as we need to making the blocks and adjusting them. We're kind of making them in the first place to the size we need them to be.