improv quilts

Fractured UFO

I finally have a UFO to show you today, a fractured UFO. Let me explain.

During a shop hop years ago, I gave in and bought a quilt kit as part of a shop promotion. It was a panel of Victorian Christmas scenes, and I thought it might make a nice Christmas gift for someone. When I opened the panel, all of the prints were skewed and hadn’t printed square on the fabric. There was no room around them to adjust my ruler to make them straight either. I was so frustrated. However, I went forward with it, adding borders and trying to make it work.

Fractured UFO - The pieced quilt top, in its original form - piecefulthoughts.com

Can you see how wavy the top is? (Sorry for the fuzzy photo.) Some of the red borders are narrower on one end than the other. The whole thing just bothered me. So, I got creative, and chopped it up.

I pulled some green fabric out of my stash and chopped that up too. I got so into the chopping that I completely forgot to take photos. Once the chopping was done, I pieced the blocks, arranged and rearranged them, and put the quilt back together.

Fractured UFO - The original quilt, chopped and pieced with a green fabric, for a modern, improv vibe - piecefulthoughts.com

It has a completely different, improv vibe now, and I’m much happier with it. I had just enough Quilters Dream Select batting for the backing, and I used the backing fabric that came with the kit.

Fractured UFO - A view of the backing I used, which came with the original kit - piecefulthoughts.com

The backing is black with a green holly print, and I used the green fabric for the binding. For the quilting, I stitched simple straight(ish) lines about 1/2-inch apart using Aurifil Loden Green (#2840). The quilt finishes at 18″ x 24″. I really should add a label . . .

I’m happy to have this off of my UFO stack, and finished in a completely different way than I had planned. I wonder if I can find another UFO to chop?!?

Have you ever chopped a quilt? I’d love to hear your story!

Linking up today with Sarah from Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Sherry from Powered by Quilting; and Tish at The Madd Quilter.

Wendy

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