Capriccio

Capriccio::a lively piece of music, that is free in form::

I'm so happy to share this quilt with you readers as I just love how it turned out! I was inspired to try something new in my quilting this summer and wanted to experiment with some improv stitching. I was inspired by Sherri Lynn Wood's book & style in starting with the wedge shapes - then just let the fabrics direct the process from there!

Constructing bits of wedges here and there & rearranging them on the design wall took some time - so many possibilities and ways to try and put them in place.  

I was using fabric from my stash, and had limited amounts of some colors, which also helped determine size/shapes. 

The fun of improv is working within the limits of colors, or fabrics or quilt size!

Starting to piece segments together and play with the layout took time. I was guessing for a lot of the white background and kept adding bits, or ripping seams to add something else back into the mix before re-adding the background. Free cutting the curves and stitching those together was a fun challenge in parts!

Once the top was finished, I moved right into basting it, and then stalled out before jumping into quilting it. I stared at it for awhile until realizing that starting at it wouldn't get it quilted. Also, I was determined to finish this in time to enter into QuiltCon - nothing like a deadline to get you going - am I right?!

Okay, here's the deal - I love to free-motion quilt. It's fun to doodle designs and I'm a big fan of matching the right quilting to the design of the top. However, figuring out how to quilt a quilt can be tricky. 

For Capriccio, I had an idea of one design in one place - echo lines around the bottom right sliver - and so that's where I started. I don't always have a full plan in mind when I start stitching, but find that once I start, more ideas come to mind and it starts to flow. I used Aurifil threads in a variety of colors for the quilting blending & matching colors with a few pops.

I knew fairly early, that I didn't want the quilt to be square, so I rounded the left corner. Getting that curve was a bit unnerving, until I discovered the sweep of the curve I wanted matched perfectly to a hula hoop I had in the house! Wouldn't you know - the hula hoop was easy to use as a 'ruler' with the rotary cutter and made that curve a snap to trim.

Thankfully, I finished just in time to get some photos in the daylight and enter this one into QuiltCon, but it didn't make the cut. Having that deadline to aim for really got me fired up to finish this so I'm not complaining! Happy to have it completed, and to check it off my Finish A Long 2018 Quarter 4 list as well! My orignal Q4 list can be found here. Linking up at Studio Sew of Course.