Improv Patchwork Blog Tour Kickoff!
Posted by Maria Shell on Oct 16th 2017
Hello C&T blog readers!
Happy day! This is the first day of the ten-day blog hop for Improv Patchwork: Dynamic Quilts Made with Line & Shape written by yours truly, Maria Shell, and published by C&T Publishing.
This is my first book!
It has been a long, good journey, and I am super glad to be sharing the end result with you today.
I tried very hard to create a book that serves a manual or how-to book. Each chapter is self-contained but also relates to the rest of the information in the book. This means you can use each chapter individually or mix them all up.
I begin with basic information about collecting supplies and organizing them so that you are ready to sew at a moment's notice. I offer insight into how I have organized my space so that quilting and sewing can be a part of my everyday life.
The rest of the chapters break down piecework into lines and shapes. We start with strips. Strips can be made with rulers and without—it is your quilt and your decision. One of the fun things we cover in the book is how to create your own designer stripes. Beachy is a quilt that I designed made with stripes.
From there we move on to more complicated prints—pointy shapes, polka dots, and beyond. Confetti is a quilt based on making multi-colored polka dots. All the information you need to make your own dots is the book.
Once you grasp the idea that you can create your own prints by using solid fabrics, you will be fully equipped to design your own original work.
Each chapter covers the entire process for creating a particular print, from selecting fabrics to cutting methods to assembly.
You can mix and match these prints into infinity and beyond. Uptown Rail Fence mixes stripes with dots and tracks. You can too.
And finally, in each chapter, the step-by-step instructions are followed by examples of how I have used each print in my own work. Big Rad Plaid is how I decided to use the tartan fabric I created in the chapter on checks, tracks, and plaids.
My hope is that I have created a piecework manual that you will use over and over again in your journey as a quiltmaker.
At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that this is the kickoff post for a ten-day blog hop. For the next nine days, sewing bloggers across the nation will be sharing with you what they like about Improv Patchwork: Dynamic Quilts Made with Line & Shape. In turn, you get a chance to comment and win the book!
I hope you will follow along.
BLOG HOP CALENDAR
October 16— C&T Publishing
October 18— Yvonne Fuchs at Quilting JetGirl
October 19— Amy Ellis at Amy’s Creative Side
October 20— Deborah Boschert at Deborah’s Journal
October 21— Teri Lucas at Generation Q Magazine
October 21— Kathy Doughty at Material Obsession
October 22— Wendy Hill at Wendy Hill’s Blog—Fun Quilts Stuff & More
October 23— Cindy Grisdela at Cindy Grisdela Art Quilts
October 24— Heather Pregger at Heather Quilts
October 25— Maria Shell at Tales of a Stitcher
C&T Publishing is giving away one copy of Improv Patchwork (hard copy for US winner, ebook for international winner). You can enter the giveaway here: a Rafflecopter giveaway.
