Feasting on Leftovers
Posted by Rayna Gillman on Oct 3rd 2017
Excerpted from Create Your Own Improv Quilts: Modern Quilting with No Rules & No Rulers by Rayna Gillman.
Whether you’re cooking or quilting, you’re bound to have some extra ingredients on hand when you are finished. And when you improvise, one thing invariably leads to another. These leftover scraps were simply begging to be used somewhere.
When you have leftovers, sew them together into units, as I did with these bits. Then put them into a “future quilts” box.
Leftovers for future use
Sometimes you won’t have to wait for the future to use your scraps. As I was organizing the scraps from this chapter, I picked up a leftover green unit and placed it on a solid black rectangle. The green squares floated!
Leftover units in green and black
Then I placed the black unit with the green line on the same background.
The positive-negative effect works well in any color combination, as long as there is contrast.
Wow! It’s a whole different look and another version of positive/negative. I played with all three colors in their variations, added a bit of red, and attached the rectangles to a background.
Floating Rectangles by Rayna Gillman, 13˝ × 19˝, 2015
Are the rectangles all exactly the same size or angle? Are the strips all the same width? Are the pieces all straight? Of course not. But that’s okay because in a free-form, no-pattern, modern world, nothing needs to be perfect.
