Julie Makes Studio Notes: July 2025 - Improv Wall Quilts, Basket-making, and a Sneak Peak!
New in the Shop: Improv Mini Wall Quilts
Improv Mini Wall Quilts are now available in my shop!
If there’s one thing that garment sewists know, it’s that sewing clothing produces a lot of fabric scraps. Even if you try to be super economical in your cutting, fabric scraps are basically unavoidable unless you sew only zero-waste sewing patterns. I have saved most of my fabric scraps from my 10+ years of garment sewing, partially out of guilt, and partially because I enjoy finding ways to use them for other projects. Over the past 3 years, one of the ways I’ve been using my trove of fabric scraps is by making mini improv wall quilts.
I first made a batch of 3 in summer 2022, right before I moved from Chicago to Maine (thanks, packing procrastination!). Each of them combines 2 black-and-white patterned linen and cotton fabrics with 2 solid color linens, and has multi-directional straight line machine quilting.
In summer 2023, I made my first low-contrast mini wall quilt, comprised of spicy red and rust orange linen, with wavy machine quilting. I looooooved the outcome, and knew this is a format I would want to explore more. For many reasons, I didn’t get around to continuing working in that format until this summer, when I made a similar low-contrast wall quilt with forest green and olive linens and the same wavy quilting pattern.
You might be asking, “why make low-contrast quilts?” For me, subtlety is really visually pleasing, especially in contrast to all the bold, high-value quilts (“value” in a color theory sense, not monetary) one often sees on social media. I think it’s something about humans liking contrasting colors/values that lends itself well to the visual nature of social media, which feeds algorithms, etc. In response to all of the visually punchy quilts I often see on my IG feed, I thought it would be interesting to explore making quilts that lean into subtlety and tactility over pure visuality. Using just two fabrics that have similar color values makes the visual experience more akin to looking at a color field painting, and allows the undulating, wavy quilt texture to come to the fore.
Earlier this month, I decided to drop this first batch of 5 mini improv wall quilts I’ve produced over the past 3 years. I was really heartened to see that the two low-contrast quilts sold pretty much instantly. I really enjoyed making those so I will definitely be releasing some more low-contrast quilts in the future. If you’re into the summer 2022 quilts, they’re still available in my shop, priced to move and with free US shipping! If you have any questions or thoughts about these quilts, feel free to leave me a comment below!
BABY’S FIRST BASKET
Earlier this month, I got together with some friends to communally try our hands at rattan and seagrass basket-making, and it spoiler alert: it was SO FUN. We used kits from Underwater Weaving (not an affiliate link), and each made ourselves a little market basket which can be hung on a wall by the handle, but also makes a really good little couch companion for storing knitting or other goodies. The whole experience was 10/10 and I would absolutely make more baskets in the future.
SNEAK PEAK: PRINTED FABRIC PATCHES
Finally, I’ll leave you with this sneak peak of things that I will be dropping in my shop sometime in August… machine-washable, linocut printed fabric patches with two sizes/options: 6 1/2 x 6 1/2” print-only patches and 12 x 12” printed and pieced quilty patches. Quantities will be extremely limited, as I made these using the short supply of quilting cottons I have on-hand. More to come on these!
