The Mind Bending Patchwork Doodle

So this is the Improv. project I impulsively dove into back in January. It's score #4 in Sherri Lynn Wood's 'The Improv. Handbook for Modern Quilters', something I am very slowly trying to wade my through, chapter by chapter. Sherri has a lot to say about improv. of course, and one of the things that resonates the most with me is when she says it's important to learn to 'trust our process of self discovery'.

The Patchwork Doodle is a completed quilt top!

The 'Patchwork Doodle' focuses on working with one simple shape at a time and then moving on to another, all without planning beyond the row {or shape} currently being assembled. The idea being that inevitably, we will recognize a theme starting to develop. It's a bit of a mind bender and I confess to having to take lots of breaks with this quilt. This is not a process I feel super comfortable with {understatement of the year!} and yet it's one that I'm sure will help me in my journey to make ever more unique and interesting quilts.

Letting it sit and marinate...

Eventually I got to the point of almost having a firm idea of the end result, but then got hung up on the fact that it was turning out to be square. Not my favorite shape in a quilt and so I experimented with adding more negative space, thinking that would be an easy way to make the quilt longer. I even considered adding in another row of simple shapes. Everything I played with seemed to make the quilt less 'me', more pretentious or forced looking, perhaps even cold looking. Nope! Back to the squared quilt shape and yes, probably a more traditional look. Totally fine by me.

It's a completed quilt top as of late this afternoon and I definitely have some mixed feelings about the final result. On one hand, it feels amazing to reach this point. How did I get here from that odd start on the design wall? I'm guessing the process of 'self discovery'?*wink  Making all those little design decisions along the way really did eventually develop into a theme. Finally! Tough to recognize at first and it felt like I was wandering around in the dark an awful lot. Maybe this will work? Or that? Like I said, lot of breaks and marinating time involved in this project.

Playing with some negative space.

At some point I realized that incorporating applique and even those classic, quarter log cabin blocks into the quilt made all the difference in the world to how the quilt reflects my personality and vision back at me--no matter the new and different colorway used. Letting one design decision inform the next one is not altogether new to me, as most of you know, but this was a slightly different process and one that raised a lot of insecurities. Moving from one simple block to the next one without even the slightest idea of where I was headed, was hard. I had to consciously shut my brain off and just go with the flow of basically whatever popped into my head and whatever fabric felt right in my hand. Trust that no matter the decision made, it wouldn't be a deal breaker. New units could be added to the quilt, cut up and reassembled, or even scrapped, but that decision would not be made until after the sewing was done and even after I had a chance to see how they played with the previous units made.

To be honest, I don't think it would have worked except for the stack of fabric used was something I trusted. Yeah, it was different, but I already had a relationship with it! This may be the main disadvantage to working with prints instead of solids. The fact that you can't just randomly pull some blendy prints in specific color ranges and make something compelling. It takes a interesting stack of fabric to add depth and feeling to a quilt. The adding to or taking out over a period of time {however long that may be} is what creates a mood of sorts. This is the probably the biggest lesson learned since starting to work with improv. If there is a stack of fabric that has a story to tell, then I can more easily trust the design decisions necessary to grow a quilt. This is becoming an increasingly important part of the quilting process to me {no matter the method of implementation}, though maybe not so much to you. We all have our ways!

Draped over the railing

This particular stack included a vintage floral, a recycled mans shirt, various checks and plaids, modern prints, small novelty prints and even some oldish blendy fabrics from years deep in the stash totes. I've been working on expanding my ideas about which prints might play well together, trying to open up to and be braver about partnerships that would have scared me a couple years ago. The colors in this quilt were an odd blend, really a big challenge in lots of ways too, but seemed fascinating and intriguing all the same. Have you noticed that I like challenges? They pulled at me. Made me wonder. Maybe that's why it was easy to push them into an improv. quilt and see what happened.

Being intrigued made it easier to grab fabrics and just start cutting. Oh look! Don't these two fabrics look wonderful together? I took Sherri's advice and used a single cut of fabric for the negative space. Not something you often see in a quilt of mine, but it was necessary for this exercise. It made the quilt more cohesive--put less pressure on the prints to be well behaved!

Loving the bright corners!

Seriously, someday I'm gonna get braver about working with solids, but for now I'm having a ball challenging myself to work with various printed fabrics. Those mixed feelings about my quilt top? How about the way my quilt looks so very different from all the other Patchwork Doodle quilts? They're all wonderful looking with their strong, bold slices of solid fabrics. Why do I always have to march to my own drum? Did I even follow the exercises correctly? Maybe my quilt looks stupid.

One of the Patchwork Doodle quilts in the book.

Oh who cares! Some of the greatest quilts ever made have been completely unique to the world of quilting at the time they were made. The fact that my quilt turned out to be so different looking is actually a good thing. It's personal and unique. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. It means that I'm capable of inserting personal 'style' into a fixed process and not ending up with a carbon copy. It's called creativity. hehe  Believe you me, I'm just beyond relieved that there wasn't a whole pile of fabrics ending up in the garbage.*whew!

A major accomplishment, getting to this stage!

And my daughter has already laid claim to the quilt whenever it gets sandwiched and quilted. Which at this point in time means about two years from now? Hmmm... it seems I've taken another detour from my finish-more-than-I-start goals.....