Making Waves :: Improv Curves

There isn't anything more humbling or satisfying than watching the waves from a beach.  The pure power of the water, the serene sound of the waves and the warmth of the sand beneath your feet.  It is my happiest place to be on earth.  

However, being land locked in Tennessee and not being able to travel to the beach often I have to make my own paradise through my quilts.  I've made several versions of this quilt throughout the years and absolutely love the process.  So, why did I stop?  Not an easily answered question other than to say there are only so many hours in a day, days in a week and weeks in a year!

CATCHING WAVES
17 1/2" x 19 1/2"

That's not to say it hasn't been on my mind!  The tough part is making myself do it.  Then with many other things, once I start I can't stop and wonder why it took me so damn long!

I was contemplating whether I should quilt some of my finished quilts, clean the house again or do something different.  I choose something different!

The first step was pulling every blue I had on hand.  With these improv curves you need to make sure you have a good length (whatever size your are after), a wide enough width (because you want to make sure you can get good curve action) and a huge variety of shades.  



You don't have to have all the strip widths the same, but a comfortable width for me is 1-3".  Some strips may be thin curves, some will have a gentle curve but wide, and then there are some that are wide and have deep curves.  

One thing about these curves is you cannot be worried about waste!  Oh waste will happen, but you have to look at the big picture.  Trust me when I say I like to use every scrap and hate to waste the tiniest of pieces!  Its a compromise and a dance with the devil!  If you are like me...you'll find a way to use some of the excess waste for another project.  



Which is exactly what I did with my scraps!  After making some of the waves, I had scraps that could easily be used for this mini quilt!  Waste not want not! 



Now is a good time to give a couple stats for this quilt.  The large wall quilt is 17 1/2" x 19 1/2" and features 30 shades of blue.  The mini quilt is 6 1/4" x 5 1/4" and has 13 different shades packed into that small space. 

I'm including a picture of all the seams on the back.  I'd say 99% were pressed open which is something I don't normally do when I work with curves.  This time I thought I'd give it a try.  You might think that by doing that your seams might pucker, but I didn't find that to be true.  I did encounter a slight amount of puckering when I made deeper curves, but I also knew that after quilting it wouldn't be an issue.

As you can see, pucker power nearly eliminated with dense quilting!  Hooray for that!  I like to quilt dense curves on these Wave pieces.  It fits the theme, it's so satisfying and believe it or not...so much fun!  I can't be sure how many different shades of thread I used, but I'm guessing 10+.  I had a few colors that I could only get a few passes from before it ran out.  So what ever you do, don't toss spools of thread when they are nearly empty!!



The texture is amazing!  Beware!  Once you start dense quilting you cannot stop!  That could mean you can't stop because you started or it could mean you can't stop because it's so addicting!  In my case it was addicting, fun and after quilting a large quilt...so satisfying!  



The earlier versions of my wave quilts all received pieced bindings.  Take a look here:  Improv Mini Wall Hangings to see what I mean and to see the different variations that I've done before.  It's a difficult and bulky way of finishing off one of these quilts.  Over the years I've learned a few things and one of those things was a faced binding.  

I learned how to do a faced or knife edge binding from this tutorial: 
Knife Edge Binding by Bloomin' Workshop.

I attempted using this method on a mini curve quilt, Mini Waves, but I didn't think it was very successful.  I learned faced binding for larger quilts and do not do it on mini mini quilts!

MINI MINI WAVES
6 1/4" x 5 1/4"

This time I wasn't taking any chances and went with my usual method for mini mini quilts. 

I'm pretty sure you noticed from this mini mini and the faced quilt that I haven't actually sewn the bindings on yet!  I was so excited to share something different that I ignored the usual protocol of sharing a true finish!  Tonight will be spent happily hand stitching on both of these!  



My plans are to make another using blues/turquoise/aqua/teal for a tropical version very soon.  And...hopefully...I can do a more in depth process/tutorial on how I do it.  I will say that improv curves is something that comes with trial and error.  I taught myself how to do it and how to make it work for me and my skill level.  Something that has been fine tuned throughout the years.  What I can share is my version of curves and hope that it spurs you to try, and is the catalyst to let you discover and learn what works for you!!

LINKING:

OH SCRAP! ● MAIN CRUSH MONDAY ●  MONDAY MAKING ●  LINKY TUESDAY 
LETS BEE SOCIAL ● MIDWEEK MAKERS ● NEEDLE & THREAD 

PEACOCK PARTY  ● TGIFF 

BRAG ABOUT YOUR BEAUTIES ● FINISHED OR NOT FRIDAY