Red / Brown Scrappy Improv

I belong to a modern quilting club at a local quilt shop, and we're working our way through Lucky Spool's Essential Guild to Modern Quilt Making.   In March we covered the chapter that Denyse Schmidt wrote on improvisational patchwork.

We were given a lunch bag filled with one color of scraps.  The facilitator was encouraging and said we only had to spend 20 minutes making a block.  Just pull the fabric out without looking at it, and sew it together, she said.  Not wanting to be a party pooper, I agreed. 

The first time we met this year, when we did the chapter on color, we were asked what two colors we wouldn't put together in a quilt.  I said red and brown, because I don't like either one at all.

So guess what?   The bag I was given had red.  The woman next to me opted out of the challenge, so I took her bag, too. She had brown.  Oh boy.  Now I had my anti-wish come true.

I didn't take a picture of those scraps, because I waited too long to do the project, and I was in a hurry.  What you see in the bags above are my scraps so I could recreate the starting concept for you.  (And yes, I did have a small amount of red and brown of my own.) 

(upper left quadrant)

I decided I didn't want to spend time making two blocks that I'd never use again, so I went ahead with plans to make a quilt top.  I was determined to Tim-Gunn it ("make it work").

To stretch the small amount of fabric I was given, I went to my own scrap bin and added more red and brown, along with pops of yellow, green, teal and cream. 

 

 

(upper right quadrant)

The scraps were pretty small, and all different shapes.  I just kept sewing pieces together until I had a hunk around the size of printer paper.  Then I could swap them around and get the colors distributed somewhat.

The only fabric that wasn't a scrap was the flower seed packet fabric in the lower center.  I put a little of it in each "block" to tie it all together.   

I also added a sprinkling of lights so all the dark colors wouldn't just run together into boredom.

 

(bottom half)

And I had to add my favorite color, chartreuse.

 

(the whole thing)

Here's the finished top, approximately 30" x 44".  It's wild and intense, and nothing I would ever have done on my own.  I felt good about making the effort to do something different, but it's not something I would repeat.

The woman that donated the scraps really loved it and said she wished she could hang it in her new house.  And the facilitator said if anyone wanted to donate their tops, she would take them and make charity quilts out of them.  I told them I wanted to keep mine.  I was sort of planning to turn it into a rug, especially since my other try at that wound up a wall hanging.  

But I don't have these colors anywhere else in my house.  And it's been sitting around here for a couple of months now, which tells me I probably don't want to put any more time into it.  Quilting is my least favorite part of the process, and that would be next.

I think I'll just give it to the scrap donor next time I see her and make two people happy.  That way I get to work on my curtain instead.