Over The River

Over The River is a quilt that was started in 2015! Yep, 7 years ago! I started it, only liked half of it, then put it in a box to get back to… I finally got back to it!

Back in 2015, the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild hosted a class with Sherri Lynn Wood when her book The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters first came out. The class was called, Improvisational Patchwork Doodling. Sherri describes this doodling as a playful yet challenging approach to improvisational patchwork.

From the SMQG website: Letting go of expectations, plans or a preconceived outcome, participants will practice building patterns with simple shapes and negative space, while learning basic improvisational sewing techniques. It is a flowing YES, AND “drawing” that accepts and builds on what comes immediately before. Like a doodle it is not planned nor is it random – it’s responsive… and plenty of fun!

After sewing we stopped and put all of our work on the floor and we discussed almost every piece. If only I could remember what Sherri said about mine!

This is what I ended up with after the class! I loved the left side with the improv simple shapes and negative space. The right side I just didn’t like. at. all. So I just boxed it up. I did think about it over the years… But never enough to figure out how to finish it.

Fast Forward to 2022 and I ended up taking another class with Sherri via zoom. This class was called Narrative Mashup: Maximalism! It was suggested to gather orphan blocks to mash up. I pulled out my original Sherri quilt pieces with my stash of orphan blocks. I don’t have many orphan blocks because I typically use orphan blocks on the backs of my quilts or use them to make a second quilt!

NOT MY WORK and I don’t know who to give credit to. If you do, please let me know!

Sherri shared this image of a quilt showing a historic example of a maximalist mashup! I love this. can I recreate something like this? I don’t think so! I tried….

During class we came up with five ‘materials’ to tie the blocks together. Our three materials were not really ‘materials’ per se, but design elements. We voted for stripes, blue/purples, 3 colors, rhythm and sowing the seeds. I added blue, green and white stripes. I didn’t follow through with the sowing the seeds aspect!

And I tried to mashup all my orphan blocks with the new design elements and I just didn’t feel it. I felt like maybe maximal mashup’s might not be my thing! ha! But I gave it a good try!

After the class we showed our work and I told my story. I showed the group what I started with and almost everyone agreed that they liked what I left class with in 2015! WHAT??? All these years I could have been finished with it??? But it’s really about me, right? And what I want my quilt to be, right?

So I took out most of the mash up and ended up with this almost finished quilt…..

I made a couple more changes… And finished it! And I like it!

I always loved the triangles! But on thier own, they seemed like they needed something else. So I think the added stripes really is what this little quilt needed, even if it took 7 years and interesting learning process! And you may be able to see that the original right side that I didn’t like, ended up on the back!

And funny thing is that my label totally ended up on the wrong side! I don’t think I’ve ever done that before, but oh well!

All in all, I actually really like it. And I really enjoyed the process it took to get here. Do you have a quilt with an extremely long process???