Improvising - Bricks Series #7

It's time to get started with my experimentation. Last week I dumped out the baggie of small scraps from my on-going "Bricks" project and discovered that it's harder than I thought to 'just put things together'. One does need some sort of plan.

Based on the number of narrow strips in my collection, I decided to work with the 'housetop' style. So named in many of the Gee's Bend quilts, it's basically the log cabin concept;  a central shape surrounded by strips.

Just one block will complete my small top as in these bed-sized examples:

Or you can make numerous blocks and sew them together:

(Here is the original top again... 

...the mother of six little quilts so far.) 

  



My goal in this series is to use up all of the fabrics gleaned from the original top but it seems I will never get rid of it all!
In addition to the many small scraps left from the above quilts, I still have quite a lot of the original rectangles (3.5" x 6"). I decided to use some of them for the backing of #7 in a similar layout seen in the original top. They seemed a bit too large in scale for this little piece so I folded them in half and used a scissors to cut them into two pieces. I needed to trim some fraying edges and straighten crooked sides which I am doing with a scissors - 'by eye'.
I decided not to use any rotary cutters or measuring devices for this project. The resulting shapes will not be exactly the same in size so sewing them together should be interesting.

I'll share completed top and backing in a future post - hopefully soon.

For an inspiring look at more improvisational quilts see this site:

Improvisational Quilts of Susan Allen Hunter