Friday, January 26, 2018

Improv Freehand Cut Striped Fabric

I'm loving this second set of improv striped fabric - this one is a winner for me! (Update: to see what became of these stripes, check out Love Match).


half inch fused black stripes
Improv Freehand Cut Fused Stripes



Though I like the first one, with it's crazy waves,


mat cut and sewn wavy stripes
Improv Freehand Cut Stripes

it's not quite what I'm wanting for my project. But both of them are definitely inspiring aren't they? Let's have a look at how these two were made, shall we?


Improv Freehand Cut and Sewn Stripes

The first set, the wavy ones, were all freehand cut, by overlaying the fabrics to get a matching cut curve. The overlay shown below starts the process.

fabrics overlaid for matching first cut






first matching freehand cut


The small black and white scrap pieces are discarded, then both fabrics are separately freehand cut again to make two strips. Makes it easier to sew!


two freehand cut stripes with matching curves in center

Remember the first overlapping cut, the one in the center of the picture above? That's the seam that gets sewn together, because the curves match up, making the process so much easier.


sewing matching curves

For the next stripe, the trick is to lay the cut curve on top of the next fabric, and cut a curve to match. Below, I've laid the white stripe onto the end of the black, leaving enough black exposed for the next stripe. Then cut, following the curve of the white.


cutting a black stripe to match curves of white fabric

And so on, and so on, until the needed size piece is sewn.


improv freehand cut and sewn curvy stripes

Those were certainly fun to make, but I wanted the stripes narrower, like a 1/2", and not as wavy. Onto my next construction idea - fusing!


Improv Freehand Cut and Fused Stripes

For this, I started with a decent width of white fabric, and a bit less of black, then added fusible web to the entire WOF piece of black.


prepping fused black for stripes

And then happily cut away, stripping that black into lots of 1/2" WOF pieces!


freehand cutting fused black into 1/2 inch WOF stripes

But the fun doesn't end there! Next came placing and fusing the strips,


placing black stripes on white

and stitching them down with a trusty zigzag (2.0 width, 2.5 length).


zigzag stitching fused black stripes

Don't you just love the rolls - keeps everything all neat and tidy! And stitching on each side of the piece also meant no scrunching in the machine throat, though it did mean stitching on the left side of the stripe. But I'm a big girl - I can do it!


zigzag stitching on the left side of the black stripe

Super happy with how this came out - it's what I envisioned!
But don't worry, I'm not throwing out the other piece - I just need to find a suitable project for it.

Now that you've seen how it's done, are you ready to make some stripes???

Happy Quilting!



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4 comments:

  1. Well how cool! I'm supposed to be doing improv stuff for the second kitty mat I need to have done for my OMG...Anxious to jump in but buried in a deadline is coming up project so I can't... It will be interesting to see where both these created fabrics end up! Thanks for linking up with TGIFF!

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  2. Very different techniques with interesting results! Thanks for sharing the process.

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  3. Wow. Very interesting. I just did some curved piecing last weekend. Not my favourite thing to do, but it was fun to try.

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  4. Very fun! I like how you got such different looks from the pieced versus appliqued stripes.

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Thank you so much for commenting...you just made my day!