A Little Improv

It's time to make a quilt back. And that means it's time for a little improv. 

I finished the top of my Hexie Quilt this week. (I'll show it to you some other time, but you can see the layout here.) I wanted to continue the delicate theme so I challenged myself to visit just one store to find some fabric. And I found it. No dithering at all. It took one minute, tops. (Does that have anything to do with the fact that my husband was with me? No! I would have found it that fast all by myself.) And I knew it was the one. But then, of course, I did have to wander the store just a bit to make sure. But I did not waver. Yea, me!

My typical way of buying backing fabric is to buy a bit more than the length of my quilt. That is never enough, because my quilts are always a little too wide to use a simple length. So I fill in a strip somewhere off-center using as much of the leftover fabrics from the front as I can. I don't spend a lot of time with measurements or planning. I just start cutting and sewing in whatever way makes the best use of the scraps. For this quilt, I had one hexagon left from the top, so that was my starting point. I filled in the corners to make a rectangle and then cut long strips from the other fabrics. That seemed to make the best use because there were a lot of longish pieces along the selvages. I cut them the widest I could, and they turned out all fairly close to each other in width even though I didn't measure. I guess it was because they all started as fat quarters with four hexies cut from each. 

I laid them out on the floor with the length of fabric I bought and then shifted them around and cut some into shorter lengths until they looked about right to me. The pieces of the backing fabric will be wider--this is just to get an idea of the look.

I've sewn everything from the hexagon up in the above picture. I trimmed rows to even them up as I joined them, and they were almost exactly (just a smidge over) the width I needed to join them to the hexie rectangle. I'm still in the process of tweaking the placement of the bottom pieces. Here's a close-up of the top section:

And on it's own:

This is as improv as I get. And I love it. I think I've said it before: backs are so fun because I just play with them. There's no "pressure" to get it right the way as I sometimes feel when I'm making a top. I have limited fabric and I just try to use it up. I really do need to try this with a quilt top sometime. 

I'm linking up this week with Ann from Fret Not Yourself for the Ad Hoc Improv Quilters linky party (it came at just the right time to share this tiny bit of improv) and with Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social. Have a fun quilty week, improv or not.