Sew Happy Friday – Using Your Scraps for An Improv Block

Here’s a tutorial from Melanie  Ham for making an improvisational quilt block.  This is a great way to use up scraps and strips from other projects.  Be creative and let yourself go with this.  I thought that Melanie cut off too much in some instances.  Making blocks will go faster if you just let the big pieces fill space. 

Also, I don’t think that it’s necessary to keep your 90° angle.  Really, you can sew the strips together any way you like until you have a piece large enough to cut out a block the size you want.  If you want a relatively squared look, then the 90° angle is probably a good idea, but if you want a more angular look to the finished block then it isn’t really essential to keep that in evidence.  The truth is that you could start the center with a triangle and work out to a square from there.
Anyway, just have fun with it.  And if you want to mix up the styles of the blocks, by all means go for it!

By the way, you could also incorporate some small “orphan blocks” (those left over from other projects) as the centers of these blocks.  That would be a nice way to use them up and also showcase them as individual pieces.