PMQG Challenge & Curved Piecing

So I joined the Philly Modern Quilt Guild last month and at the first meeting, I decided to participate in the group's next challenge! The challenge includes using four fat quarters from Robert Kaufman's Kona Solids line plus up to 1 yard of any other fabrics. Candi picked the colors - snow, holly, chocolate and ruby. I wasn't sure how I would use the solids and I knew I didn't have a lot of time (the project has to be finished by the December meeting!). Then I was visiting Spool with Heather and we saw that they were offering a Curved Piecing class. We were both curious about the technique, so we signed up for the class. The materials to bring for the class ended up being 6 to 8 fat quarters of solid fabrics! So I grabbed my 4 challenge pieces and added in 4 additional solids that I had lying around. The class was really awesome! It was really all about freedom and I learned a lot. I didn't get all the way through piecing my fabrics, but I am well on my way to an awesome quilt! The instructor was Sujata Shah, who was featured on the PMQG blog recently. You can find out more about Sujata by clicking here. She was a fabulous instructor and I look forward to working with her again in the future!

Anyway, although I'm not finished with the quilt yet, I thought I would share some of the pieces. The first one shown below is a simple combination of 3 fabrics with some modest curves.

That on it's own is "ok", but isn't all that inspiring. So, one thing to do is to start messing with the curves and adding new colors in between so that you have some narrower strips, plus more than 3 colors. See the one below where I inserted some purple.

That definitely adds some interest, and you could see how one can just keep going. Well, the next step is to layer a bunch of these and re-cut them. Then you start to see all sorts of fun things, like certain colors being "pinched" out, or really thin sections of a given color. See below for an example.

See how the white in the middle gets pinched out and you start to get more pronounced curves in some areas? Well, I can see this becoming an addiction! I have a couple tricks in store that you'll have to wait and see when I finish the quilt.

Unfortunately (but somewhat fortunately) I took my sewing machine in to be serviced last week and I probably won't get it back until after Thanksgiving. It was my grandmother's machine and it hasn't been serviced since 1982! So I'm looking forward to having a much nicer machine when I get it back!

So what do you think of curved piecing? Have you ever tried it?