Unless we are doing raw edge or collage work, our medium requires us to cut up pieces of fabric and fit them together. That requires math. If you are old enough to remember Doby Gillis, imagine Maynard G Crebbs squeaking out the word "work." That is the tenor of my voice when I say math. But, if you want your quilt to fit together ...

And so I get out my favorite quilters reference guide, measuring tools, sketches, calculator and fabric. I have the measurement for the hypoteneuse of the setting triangle (the size of my square). How do I figure the size of the other two sides? I seem to remember something about the Pythagorean Theorem. My reference guide has a nice chart that gives the diagonal measurement for various sized squares but, of course, my block is an odd size and all the numbers are uneven figures that don't show up on my ruler. I fuss with the figures for a long time, checking and double checking my work. Should I round up at every step? Or just at the end? Do I work with raw sizes or finished sizes? A multitude of worries, second gueses and doubts accompany my deliberations. Much later, I discovered a calculator on line that would have quickly and easily done the calculations for me, just by entering the measurement of my square. I am trying to remember that my brain needs the workout. Quilting is better than Sudoku!

I finally arrived at a figure and moved to the fun part. Picking out the fabric!

I knew I wanted to frame my center with the rich cinnamon swirling vine from the Moda Puzzle Pieces Collection and I wanted to use the wild pink floral from the Soul Blossoms collection. That lucious pink with it's wild and whimsical flowers was to be my bridge to blue.

I found the perfect blue, right there in my stash! Don't you love when that happens! I only have a little less than a half yard, but it is a Michael Miller Krystal that I know I can get more of. When I put this awesome blue with the other fabrics it made my heart smile.

I wanted the setting triangles to be scrappy and I needed two other fabrics for the design I had worked out. That turned out to be a lovely fabric selection challenge involving wanderings through both the shop and my stash. I finally selected a colorful Peacock Feather design and this winsome, open floral, both from the Soul Blossoms collection.

I love the opulent, oversized motif's that seem to be favored by Amy Butler and the young designers who have brought a fresh new look to our fabric. But I cringe at the alacrity with which they cut up their boldly beautiful designs. I reluctantly cut the pink floral into small squares telling myself that I might be able to incorporate larger pieces at some later point in the project but as I cut, my risk-taking was rewarded with small delights. The little pieces gave me lovely little vignettes from the larger piece. This is so much fun! The math challenges are forgotten!

Putting it all together is the final reward. The math came out precisely right. Almost too precisely. I worried that my corners were too small but there they are, sewn on with an exact 1/4 inch outside those points so that when I sew on the next round I won't loose them. Yessss! 

What next?

I have decided to work improvisationally on this quilt. This means working without a pattern or plan, making up the quilt as you go along. Improv quilts grow in an organic way, one creative decision at a time.

You can work improvisationally from many different starting points. On occasion I have started with a blank piece of paper and worked out a graphic design first. Then I search for fabric to enhance the shapes and fill the spaces I have created. Sometimes, I am inspired by an occasion or a person or an image or an object or a challenge but, because I love fabric, that is where I usually start.

This quilt starts with my Siren from Amy Butler's Soul Blossoms collection. The structure of this piece is spectacular! The heady blossoms with their arched crowns are underlined by fanciful pink flower garlands. The floaty, moon-shaped dandelions add a touch of otherworldly whimsy. (I am not a gardener so I am free to love dandelions. Every lawn should have an artful scattering!) The movement is horizontal with the crowns and flower garlands drawing your eye across the piece, but the stems and leaves provide an underlying vertical framework.

One of the hardest challenges, working improvisationally, is deciding where to start. I wanted to highlight the horizontal movement of the fabric and I debated about starting with a wide horizontal strip of my Siren above and below a pieced center. But that layout would bring attention to the piecework rather than my Siren. I wanted all eyes to go immediately to the fabric that led me into this improvisational working.

Also, I like to make quilts to cover people. People are vertical (some more than others). So, I like my quilts to be (more or less) vertical.

I cut my first block to feature a single, soulful blossom. It's vivid stem draws the eye along the vertical plane. This cut brings the flower garland down to a V, drawing your eye to the stem and underscoring the vertical orientation. And, I was able to get two groupings of those fantastical, floaty moons! The "on point" orientation also empasizes the verticallity and adds a touch of elegance to the block.

The process of making an improv quilt is a series of artistic decisions. It requires you to stay in the moment, listen to the fabric and see with your soul. But craft must interlock with art every step of the way. With each creative decision you must summon the skill and ingenuity to make your vision work. You will need to draw upon all of your skills and techniques and when your vision extends beyond your skill, you will be driven to learn some new ones.

In this instance a construction consideration nipped my artistic vision. I would have cut the piece of my Siren a bit larger, but the border stripe was printed only along the selveges of the fun pink floral fabric. I would have had to buy more to go around a larger piece. Working with what you have is sometimes part of the challenge and always part of the artistic process.

Adding the narrow border of lime crossweave was an easy decision. It added a bit of punch to my somewhat subdued Siren and drew even more attention to that commanding vertical stem.

A note about cutting stripes: Often stripes are not printed perfectly on the straight grain of the fabric, or even straight at all. This border was not printed as precisely as I would have liked. I had to make a decision between cutting accurately and maintaining the integrity of the design. I opted to keep the design intact but the cost was a less than perfectly cut strip. In construction, it has created a slight ripple in my beautiful block. That ripple was not in my creative vision. Do you think it will quilt out?

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On this early morning it was snowing as I worked at my shop owner tasks. Something in the beauty and magic of the gently falling snow bemused me and I heard the song of the of the Sirens luring me, gently but insistently toward the treacherous rocky shore of a new fabric purchase. Not knowing how I got there, I found myself gazing at the new Soul Blossoms collection by Amy Butler. The colors of this collection intrigue me. They run from cool, the cool that gentles the heat of the tropics (hibiscus pink, azure, lime) to warm, cinnamon brushed persimmon. The designs are bold and souful. I am in love with this piece.

Surrounded by beautiful fabric, with snow making a warm cocoon of my quiet shop, I wandered the store with this beautiful Siren in my arms, on a quest for the perfect fabric to complement my beloved.

Here are my prizes.

From left, my first find was a gorgeous cotton sateen from Moda. The sheen doesn't show in my photo, nor does the rich color, which I want to call coffee, but it has too much red in it.

The pretty pink floral is part of the Soul Blossoms collection. The colors only loosely relate to my Siren though they are part of the same collection. I like that, it keeps my quilts from being too "matchy-matchy" but it creates a challenge. How will I draw the pieces together into an artful coexistence? There are fresh challenges like this in every quilt. That is why the craft never grows dull or tiresome.

I also like that this pretty pink fabric introduces blue, my favorite color. There is no blue in my Siren ... well ... Sirens do have their faults. This whimsical pink will be my bridge to blue. The orange in the flowers and the cinnamon tracery in the border will anchor my Siren on one end; then this lovely pink will arch over, like a rainbow, to a bright beautiful blue.

Don't you love the border stripe? It runs along each selvage. If I had garment making skills, I would make a dress for my two year old granddaughter, with the stripe along the hem. This fabric also comes in green with a matching green edge stripe that would be perfect for a cool sundress. You can see the green along with the rest of the collection on the Collections page of the website.

The cinnamon vine swirl is one of Moda's Puzzle Pieces our "go to" blender collection here on Ruby Street. We love the rich hues, the broad spectrum of color and the elegant designs in this collection. This cinnamon piece borders on orange and converses with the cinnamon/persimmon background of my Siren.

From warm cinnamon vines my eye lights on a cool lime green Crossweave, again from Moda. Crossweaves are woven with two different colors of fiber, giving them complexity and interest. In this case the texture warms up the fabric and lets it cozy up with the cinamon tones without loosing it's zing.

The last piece is my Siren. My photo, though not as clear as the swatch photo from Moda, does bring out the orange tones, like cinnamon heated over an orange flame. Perhaps it was the heat that attracted me on this snowy day. So there I am, happily foundered upon the shore of a new fabric purchase.

What will these fabrics become?