Quilt Improv: Incredible Modern Quilts from Everyday Inspirations

By Lucie Summers

Learn how to create twelve stunning contemporary quilts and develop your own designs using improvisational methods.

Take inspiration from simple objects to create twelve beautiful, contemporary quilt blocks. Create original quilts from each block design and adapt them to your own style. Learn how to interpret print, pattern and shapes into unique quilting ideas and experiment with a range of innovative techniques for impressive, professional results. Inside you’ll find techniques such as square piecing, basket weave, half-square triangles, chevrons, quarter circles and portholes.

So, if you love fabric and color, take a step into the world of improv quilting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781446361603

Book preview

How to use this book

The Building Blocks

This first section of this book describes with easy-to-follow instructions and diagrams how to make thirteen different units or blocks. These blocks are about 121/2in (32cm) square but you can make them any size you like. You can also add strips to the sides of the blocks to change their size. The blocks can be used in various ways.

Make them up as individual mini quilts, which can be displayed on their own, or all together on a wall for maximum impact.

Combine the blocks to create the quilts shown in the second section of the book.

Use the blocks in various other combinations to create your own quilt designs.

General Techniques

The third section describes the general techniques needed to assemble, quilt and finish your quilts. This section is useful if you are new to quilting, as there is advice on cutting fabric, sewing blocks together, pressing, making a quilt sandwich, machine quilting and binding.

Measurements

My quilts are made in a free, improvised way and I try not to get too hung up about measurements. When talking about measurements, I’ve used words such as ‘roughly’ ‘approximately’ and ‘about’, to give a general idea on sizes. Measurements given already have a 1/4in (5mm) seam allowance included and blocks and quilt units are sewn together with 1/4in (5mm) seams. The blocks I like best are those that have strips added to the sides to bring them up to size – a great way to get over measurement hang-ups. This is a fun way to work, with minimum stress and maximum creativity. In The Building Blocks section, I’ve suggested you trim the blocks to about 121/2in (32cm) square. Some of mine were a bit larger and others a bit smaller, but this is ok.

In the Piecing Maps with the quilts I’ve given approximate size guides so you can make the quilts more or less as seen in the photos: you can also alter the measurements and make the pieces as big or small as you like. Welcome to improv!

The Quilts

The second section is a gallery of larger quilts, describing the inspiration behind them and giving guidance on making them. I show pictures of ordinary things that have inspired these final quilts. These are images of things you might not ordinarily notice but are around us all of the time and include everyday things, such as a stack of coloured shoe boxes, an assortment of pretty, patterned plates, a length of frayed rope on a child’s swing, a piece of rusted metal set into a wall. I show you how all of these ordinary things can be used as inspiration for a quilt.

If you follow the block techniques in the first section you should be able to make any of the quilts in the second section as I use all of the same techniques. Each quilt has a series of sketches, leading up to the Finished Plan, with descriptions of the blocks or units used. The Piecing Plan gives more practical advice on the approximate sizes used for the units that make up the quilt, and how to assemble it.

The Building Blocks

Appliquéd Circle

Basket Weave

Chain-Pieced strips

Chevrons

Crazy Triangles

Cross Block

Half-Square Triangles

Log Cabin

Pieced Squares

Portholes

Quarter Circles

String Block

X Block