Improv Paper Piecing

I was excited to get my hands on this book having seen quite a buzz about it in Blog-land for a couple of months. Amy is a former museum curator and trained art historian who has designed for the likes of Art Gallery Fabrics and Sizzix as well as well as quilting, sewing and raising her three children. (Have you noticed how generally clever and multi-talented quilters tend to be? There's a pattern forming here...let's discuss). In Improv Paper Piecing Amy sets out to combine two approaches to quilt making that are seemingly at odds with one another. One reviewer even described the book's title as an oxymoron. Improvisational quilting relies on a journey of instinct and experimentation with unpredictable and sometimes startling results, whilst paper piecing is a much more mathematical process relying on accuracy and pre-planning. To marry the two, Amy has set one simple guideline, which is that the quilter needs to have straight stitching lines and a sewable order. In doing this, it's possible to sew asymmetrical shapes, pieces cut on the bias, and hard to measure acute angles. She uses sketches to create improvisational designs and encourages her readers to doodle using interlocking squares or stacking triangles that can later be neatened up into block designs. There are 12 quilt designs that you can follow with playful names such as 'A little to the Left' and 'Wonky' that might suggest a rather haphazard end result but fear not, the designs are asymmetrical variations of traditional blocks. You won't be totally thrown in at the deep end as templates are provided for all of the quilt projects but Amy's ultimate aim is that you use her guidance to create your own works of art. This is a good-looking book with photography throughout by guess who? Amy herself. Now back to our earlier discussion... * Popular Patchwork * How do you create impact in a simple way? Paper piecing is a traditional quilting method whilst improvisational paper piecing takes that idea and turns it modern. You can now simply create one of a kind blocks to design your own quilts with stunning effects. This book shows exercises to explore scale, symmetry and grids to create contemporary quilts. An approach to design that will work for most producing repeatable patterns by thinking of the secondary shapes created by block design. It's a bit like drawing negative space instead of the object itself. The exercises are very good and Amy walks you through the whole process. An excellent book for those who love to play with design. Fabric selection, design ideas and templates are all included. * yarnsandfabrics.co.uk *