Thursday, March 23, 2017

Scraps and Improv

I am teaching an improv piecing class in Paris (in Ontario, not France!) on Saturday and am getting all my samples out of the closet. I decided that I really wanted to have my Scrap Vortex finished to show the students. It's one of my favourite quilts and it demonstrates how you can use crumbs, scraps and letters to make an "interesting" quilt. 


I started this quilt in June 2015 and this is how it looked when it came out of the UFO closet this week.

I still loved it, and particularly loved that the 'S' in SCRAP turned out to look not as bright as the rest of the word. That's seredipidy!
However, I really wanted to have the word 'vortex' in the quilt, so I pieced the letters, surrounded them with scraps, cut the quilt top in half and inserted the vortex strip.


Here it is...
UGH!
OH NO! 

Definitely not serendipity!

The R's cannot be right above each other! That just didn't look like how I had envisioned it!




Out came the seam ripper, and the quilt top was dissected again! 
I inserted a scrappy strip between the words. 
Better.
But there are a few things that need to be changed so I can like it more. And a great border idea popped into my mind, so this project isn't close to being a finished quilt top yet! But it's ready for a road trip to Paris on Saturday!

Linking up to Cynthia's Oh Scrap! party!

16 comments:

The Cozy Quilter said...

I just started my third scrap vortex quilt as a leader/ender. I love the words in yours. Have fun on Saturday!

Kristin said...

You are on the right track!! It's looking great!

Julierose said...

I have begun sewing twosies--for a small lap quilt vortex for my SIL--a surprise project so I won't be posting about it-- as he peeks into my blog every once in a while--he is fascinated by the fact that I have 106 followers--I haven't told him that a lot of bloggers have thousands of them! LOL
I need to tame my scraps--A while back I actually THREW out some; and now the "guilt" has made me start to use them up--I do think they multiply overnight...hugs, Julierose

Carole @ From My Carolina Home said...

It is evolving again, nice!!

swooze said...

Can I just say I was giggling the whole time I was reading this. I love you to death.

Janet O. said...

What a wonderful thing when you can slice up a quilt like that, have it recover so nicely, and then turn around and do it again and end up even better off than before!

Rebecca said...

I love the vanishing "S" in this quilt..
I also love the idea of adding the word "oh" over the scrap letters!

maggie fellow said...

oh I love the idea of adding words - wonderful quilt

Vicki W said...

Oh gosh I love this!

Kathy S. said...

Love the use of scraps and words in this quilt. What a lucky class to have you teach them. Have fun!

Marie said...

Paris, oooh la la! (even if it is Paris, Ontario :) ) Looks like it will be fun.

Kate said...

Very fun addition!

Deanna W said...

OMG you are too funny. But we just have to get it right or else we won't like it as much. I applaud you determination...not sure I would have done that!

Quiltdivajulie said...

MUCH better -- terrific quilt in the works!

Cynthia Brunz Designs said...

Now that is a scrap quilt! Thanks for sharing with Oh Scrap!

Karen's Korner said...

What a great way to use up all those scraps that seem to appear overnight.