a (quilt) feast from leftovers

Some of my happiest improv quilts have come from leftovers. In fact, most often it is the remaining pieces from a quilt I made (or frequently, didn't make) that are the happy accidents. Of course I had more blocks than I needed for this quilt on the cover of my book, and a dozen of them have been sitting around for three years.

Several months ago I decided to try another layout for the leftovers and I sewed them together using the same gray fabric into a skinny piece. It stayed as it was -- an unfinished experiment. Last week a guild asked me for a class sample and I said I never have class samples because everybody works so differently and my classes are process, not project.

And then I looked at this sewn-together "what if?" and decided to finish it. I added a row of gray fabric on the right, layered it and in two days, I had quilted it. There are so many ways to set these individual quarter blocks; here is my second take. It is unintentionally modern and I am really happy with it. When I get it back, I'll face it.

Another quilt story: my granddaughter Kayla spent this summer teaching art to prisoners in New York. A few weeks ago she sent me a photo of a quilt they had made from the pictures they had painted during their classes. The students picked out the fabrics they wanted as borders to their work.

A quilt!! WOW - I am so proud of her (especially since she took one quilt class a couple of summers ago from a quilt police type of teacher and HATED it). Kayla,

you rock!

Life is full of surprises, isn't it?