Inspiring Improv : : Explore Creative Piecing With Curves, Strips, Slabs and More

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	746.46 Ba	4-week checkout	Due 05-11-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Crafts & Hobbies / Quilting / Ball, Nicholas	4-week checkout	Due 05-12-2024

Explore the freeing power of improvised piecing with Nicholas Ball in his first book, Inspiring Improv. Learn his step-by-step technique based process to explore six fundamental piecing structures. Practice how to stitch fabric together in an improvisational manner to create blocks or sections before using them to sew unique quilts all your own. Improv piecing doesn't have to mean chaotic end results. Look to the eight original projects included to see how to create sophisticated quilts with structure focusing on repeating blocks or large scale scrappy designs. Follow along as Nicholas walks you through his original inspiration and follow his plan through to finished pieces, as he discusses which combination of his core piecing methods he used and how to achieve showstopping, exciting work. From simple strip piecing through to complex circles and rings, you will be eager to experiment making slabs, gentle curves, insets, triangles and even 9 patch and Log Cabin stacks, and then use them as a stepping stone to sewing original full sized designs.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Improv guide submitted by terpsichore17 on June 21, 2022, 12:37pm It's always interesting reading a guide book to improvisation: the balance between direction/instruction and freedom can be difficult to strike. Ball's approach is to discuss ideas/creativity, then share techniques (insertion, slab assembly, gentle unpinned curves, stacking-and-slashing), then show his patterns using said techniques.

Slab assembly is rather like the constructed fabric of Mori's Ultimate Scrap Quilt, and gentle curves/stack-and-whack are familiar enough. His style of building a ring using many straight-edged pieces dovetails nicely with my existing love for straight-edged curves, so I'm eager to try that technique.

A mild frustration: all of his fabrics seem to be very low-volume tone-on-tone blenders, so it's harder to get an idea of how to improvise with something a bit larger in scale.

Some of the quilt names, for my own later reference: Foliage (string quilting), Desert Dwellings (casual triangles), How to Age a Tree (straight-line curves), The Night Garden (gentle curves), Tally (stack and whack), After Seurat (watercolor effect through stack and whack).