Maria Shell Workshop In Progress + Carrie's Traverse Row Quilt

The second half of my two-part Making Prints improvisational piecing workshop with Maria Shell was this past Monday evening via Zoom.  Our assignment from Part One of the class had been to create a palette of solid color fabrics and then construct a bunch of different units using those fabrics and techniques that had been demonstrated in class.  Despite being down with Covid all week, I managed to get a bunch of these chunks made, slapped them on my design wall in the main hallway of my house, and then every time I walked by I either stopped to scowl at everything but left things along, or started rearranging the units.  Here's what I had going on the last time I touched it, on the morning before the last class:

My Design Wall, 11 AM on Monday

In Part Two of the workshop Maria introduced several techniques involving triangles and I might make some of those to mix in with what I've got here so far, or I might make some additional units like what I already have so I can balance things out with a little repetition.  I do want to finish the workshop piece and put enough thought and effort into the composition to get everything I can out of the class, but the danger for me with an open-ended assignment like this -- and no grades or deadlines to rein me in -- is that I could easily go on and on, arranging and rearranging ad infinitum and never actually finish the project!

I haven't moved anything or made any new units in the last two days.  Still feeling low-energy and needing daily naps from the Covid and just decided to let what's on the wall marinate for a bit while I am resting.

However, the portion of Monday's class where Maria discussed different composition structures (grid, row, medallion etc) reminded me of a client's quilt that I long armed about a year ago and never shared with you.

Carrie's Traverse Quilt, Pattern by Tara Faughnan

This gorgeous Traverse Quilt is a kit designed by another modern quilter I admire, Tara Faughnan.  I just checked on Etsy and found lots of options available if you'd like to make one of your own, from complete Traverse kits in these exact fabrics still available, to patterns only, to completed quilts for sale.  (This post contains affiliate links).  

Detail of Traverse Quilt, Designed by Tara Faughnan, Pieced by Carrie, Quilted by Me

Looking at these photos again after taking Maria Shell's workshop, I'm seeing some similarities between these two quilters: Both are working exclusively in solids, and both use a large palette of solid fabrics with a nice assortment of hues and values.  Both are creating print-like patterns in patchwork stripes of fabric.  Maria sometimes sets her pieced strip units in rows like Tara has done in Traverse.  

The big difference is that Maria loves to lean into the organic irregularity of improvisational patchwork featuring not-quite-straight lines cut without rulers, whereas Tara's crisp geometric designs display the straight lines, perfectly matched seams and pointy diamonds and triangles that come from traditional cutting and piecing (with a ruler) and foundation paper piecing for some of the units.  Honestly, I really like both effects.  I liked this quilt so much when Carrie sent it to me that I was tempted to order a kit for myself!  

Carrie's 72 x 85 Traverse Quilt

Carrie did a phenomenal job with this quilt, which made my job so much easier as the quilter.  She sent me a flat, well-pressed quilt top that was ready to load and quilt and my job was just to keep her rows of patchwork as straight throughout quilting as they were after she'd pressed them.  Now, if you're someone who's working on your free motion and ruler work quilting skills on  a long arm or on your domestic machine, Traverse would be a really fun quilt for custom quilting different things in each row.  Carrie wanted edge to edge quilting, and we chose Hall of Mirrors for the quilting design.  I used Hobbs 80/20 Black cotton/polyester batting to preserve the rich saturation of the jewel tone fabrics.

Hall of Mirrors E2E in YLI Machine Quilting Cotton Thread, 10V Pastels

The variegated thread, YLI Machine Quilting Cotton in variegated 10V Pastels, is so pretty in person.  It's such a bummer when I can't get the thread to show up in my photos!  

Okay, this was originally going to be my Design Wall Monday post, and then it was going to be my To Do Tuesday post, and now here it is Wednesday already...  Taking stock of all of my current WIP projects:

• Maria Shell Improv Workshop: I do feel it's important that I push on to finish this piece before setting it aside, while everything I learned in the workshop is fresh in my mind and I still have access to the video recordings if I need a refresher.  If I packed these units away unfinished, I'd probably never get back to finishing it at all.  So that's a focus for this week for sure, maybe stretching out to the end of September
• FrankenWhiggish Applique: Making the 96 fussy-cut stuffed berries for these blocks was my one big goal for September.  So far I have all of the batting circles cut out, but I still need to fussy cut all of the fabric circles and gather up the raw edges with a basting stitch etc.  I'm going to need to get back to that soon if I'm going to get it done by the end of the month
• Deco Quilt: I am stalled out in the middle of making Blocks 3A from my Indigo and green fabrics.  I think I have 16 or so more left, and then I have to start making 18 nearly identical Blocks 3B out of Indigo and Thistle (or whatever that pale purple is called).  I took these blocks to the Naples Guild Gathering Stitches social sewing a couple weeks ago but made mistakes and had to rip and restitch -- these blocks require too much concentration for 
• Scrappy Celebration: I haven't touched this one since June, even though I have the fabrics for the next six blocks selected and ready to cut and sew.  This project only requires six of each block so there's lots of variety and fun selecting the prints for each one throughout the project.  I'm treating it like a reward for slogging away on those tedious Deco blocks.  When I finished with the green and Indigo Deco blocks, I'll take a break and reward myself with the next set of Scrappy Celebration blocks.
• The NewFO, Seven Sisters: This is my next hand work project that I'd hoped to begin in September, but as I'm planning to hand piece the blocks this one is waiting patiently for me to finish making and stitching all the stuffed berries to my FrankenWhiggish appliqué blocks. 
• The Other NewFO, Star Upon Stars: This one will be a much more involved machine piecing project for me (although Wendy Welsh did an amazing job hand piecing hers) and it's waiting in line behind Deco.

Obviously all of my existing WIPs would have seen more progress in September if I hadn't started the new workshop project (or gotten Covid), but sometimes you just have to step away and take advantage of educational opportunities when they present themselves.  Maria has lots of different workshop opportunities available directly through her web site throughout the year, but the class I took was heavily subsidized by my former quilt guild and I was the one who suggested booking her, so it was especially important to me to participate even if that meant slowing down on everything else I have going on.  In fact, regardless of still feeling icky with Covid, I think I need to prioritize making some of the triangle units from the second class today while things are still somewhat fresh in my mind.  What are you working on today?

I'm linking up today's post to some of my favorite linky parties:

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

FRIDAY

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

 

Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts