Playing with Fabric
Posted by Cindy Grisdela on Sep 2nd 2016
Are you ready to play?
My new book, Artful Improv: Explore Color Recipes, Building Blocks & Free-Motion Quilting, gives you a road map for playing with fabric and design to create your own unique art quilts.
If you’re ready to move beyond patterns to express your personality in fabric and thread, Artful Improv, due out in October, gives you exercises to sew units such as Angled Stripes, Improv Circles, Inset Strips, and Improv Blocks in your choice of fabrics and colors. Helpful tips on choosing color recipes*, using simple design principles, and playing “what if” on the design wall guide you to put together an art quilt that is yours alone.
*In case you are wondering what a color recipe is, use cooking as an analogy: The basic structure of your design might be shades of red, from the fiery orange of a tomato, to deep burgundy, all the way to warm cinnamon. If you leave it at that, it might look fine but lack the zing that really makes the recipe special. For spice, you might throw in some contrast, such as purple or a dash of lime green.
Time Travel is an energetic design that focuses on Improv Blocks and Inset Strips in a riot of colors.
Sunset Hills explores modern simplicity and the power of negative space with just two Inset Strips.
Follow along as I show the design decisions that went into creating A Little Citrus in the “Working Improvisationally” chapter.
Wrap it all up with tips and tricks on free-motion stitching and finishing touches, including how to mount your quilt on painted canvas. You’ll be on your way to creating original art quilts!
