Saw a photo of a wall hanging on Pinterest based on large “wonky” curves. I’ve never really tackled curves except on the princess seams of a jacket where you have to join a convex edge to a concave one. Curve sewing seemed a good thing to learn to control. The technique is the same here as it was on the jackets except the curve is more exaggerated making the sewing more complicated in order to have the seam lay flat!
The curves are also improvisations cut with a rotary cutter – no pattern, no templates, just free-form cutting. The first few cuts were nerve-wracking – what shape curve to cut, from where to where,… It took a couple of blocks before I started to get the hang of what I was trying to do.
I started with 12″ blocks of each fabric, paired them up, and began cutting. I swapped the corner of one block with the fabric beneath – each cut yielded two blocks each consisting of two different fabrics. I realized on the first pair of blocks I needed to insert a thin accent strip in the block – so two curved seams! When I finished each block the outer edges were no longer straight – the blocks needed to be trimmed and squared. The resulting blocks ended up 10.25″ x 10.25″.
To join the blocks I used 1″ sashing giving me 1/2″ separations between each block. The borders are 2″ strips.
I bought backing fabric this morning (before the snow starts falling this evening). Tomorrow will definitely be a sewing day. I’ll have to think about what improvisation to use for the back – it should be something that suggests curves!
It looks great! Congratulations on trying something new.
Ooh, do like this! I’ve never attempted curved seams in quilting, but this looks very tempting! 🙂
I hadn’t ever done curves before, either. it took a bit of practice to figure out that I got the best results with the concave piece on the bottom and rotating the convex piece as I sewed – stretching the edge ever so slightly. I did this all spontaneously, it would all fit more directly if I cut out paper curves and added the 1/4″ seam allowance to both edges, then the seam would be precise – but I found my spontaneous cuts worked also if I made sure I cut the curve on one piece, then placed the second piece beneath it and cut the curve about 1/4″ away from the cut edge. It also helps if you mark the curves (with them aligned and touching) with chalk in a couple of places so you have locations to aim for when stitching.