Impromptu Along

In May, I saw that I’m A Ginger Monkey was organizing an Impromptu Along.  Looked like fun to me – I was in!

You need the impromptu pattern by Rachel Griffiths. Available here.  Fabric requirements are a layer cake and 6.5 yards of background fabric.  This is to make a bed size quilt…90.5” square.

I decided for my quilt I was going to use hand-dyes for the background and some of my treasured African fabrics for the squares.  I also decided that I wasn’t going to make it so big.  I’m not sure what the end size of mine will be since I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with borders but it’s going to be a 4 x 3 main block grid.

First I made 6 of the ‘squarey’ blocks.

Block 1. I threw a zebra print in with my African prints.  I only have 11 different African fabrics and that bothered me…I needed 12 fabrics…just a personal thing…not a pattern thing.  I really like how it looks so I’m happy I added it.Block 2. Some of the African print shave metallics on them…so love! Block 3.  More zebra…

Block 4.

Block 5.

Block 6.

Okay – all 6 of the ‘squarey’ blocks are done.  Now let’s add in the large print blocks and see how it’s going to look. This was my firs attempted layout.  I thought this created some fun dimension and the the hand dye in the corners, on the top and two sides reminded me of a little man…sort of African style.  But..I just couldn’t embrace it 100% and decided to sleep on it and see if my dreams gave me other ideas.

Of course they did!  I decided to do a log cabin border around each of the 6 big prints.  The first round I used hand-dyes.  In the second round I used one of the African fabrics and then the rest was hand-dyed.  I love the added dimension it adds to the quilt and it helps blend all the hand-dyes together creating more unity in the piece.

Once I got a four patch done I stepped back to look and make sure I was happy with my decision.  I was.  So I kept going.

Here’s the layout of my 12 blocks.  I may change some orientations or layouts of the pieces before I put them all together but it’s pretty close!  What do you think?

Check out how the other #impromptualongs are going by checking out the flickr group or searching the hashtag #impromptualong on instagram.

This was also in my ‘A Lovely Year of Finishes’ Goals for this month…it may have consumed me for the past week…but that means it was a great project to work on.