My First Improv Quilt

I am so glad to show you my first finished quilt for 2012. I have used a pattern from Kate Conklin Designs called There's a Square in There. I love the contemporary look of the quilt and decided to make one for my son.

I have mostly used Denyse Schmidt's Greenfield Hill line -dogwood colourway, a mix of prints, Essex Cotton/ Linen solids and a whole lot of Kona Cotton in Snow.

It was a lot of fun cutting the fabrics using Kate's 'stack and slash' method.



I wanted to add more blocks as I wanted the quilt to be bigger and the blocks smaller than the original design. So after a few exchanges of emails with Kate and based on her recommendations, I made the blocks smaller without compromising the look and added 9 extra blocks to make it 72" square. Love the improv look!

Quilting was fun too.   I hand quilted it using Perle Cotton No. 8  and
followed Kate's method

using masking tape to mark out the squares and then quilted on the inside and outside of the tape.

I love her pieced back design
and did the same for this one.  I used
Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley line-new day colourway for the backing and added a few green prints to tie up with the front of the quilt.

I made up two scrappy binding strips using the remaining fabrics I have used for the front and placed them randomly on the sides and I love how it looks!

I am very happy with how it turned out and knowing that my son, Iliya loves it....PRECIOUS!!!