Improv Quilts by Laura Loewen
Embrace the freedom and creativity of improv quilting with award-winning quilter Laura Loewen (@QuiltFortCo). Discover the joy of ruler-free cutting, explore the world of colour play, and dive into fun, fearless creative piecing using Laura's expert guidance. This book is a must-read for confident beginner quilters eager to discover new skills and looking for a vibrant, playful quilting experience, but any level of quilter can use this book to begin their improv journey. Laura showcases her own working methods - from sketches and fabric play to painterly colour movement - covering all the necessary techniques in detail, and helping you to create a solid base of colour knowledge before you launch into combining colour play with improv shapes. Inside you'll find: 10 stunning colourful step-by-step quilt projects that build your skills as you work through the book; Techniques throughout, from building harmonious colour schemes and value sorting to going ruler free and working with curves; Stunning photographs and easy-to-follow illustrations, as well as key guidance on quilting essentials including basting, quilting and binding; Confidence-building prompts for your own improv quilts; Colouring sheets so that you can work out your colour schemes on paper before committing to fabric. This book is your ticket to fearless, fun, and utterly unique improv quilting. Discover inspirational finished pieces, prompts to begin your own individual improv projects and new ways to design quilts through the mouthwateringly colourful projects inside. Laura has exhibited quilts at QuiltCon (#quiltcon) in 2019 and 2020, and in 2020 her More Is More quilt won 1st Place in the Appliqué category.Loewen encourages readers to throw out the quilting rule book in this creative take on the craftThe projects start out relatively structured, limiting improvisation to color selection. For instance, Loewen shares how to make an Irish chain quilt by cutting 125 fabric squares of various colors and feeling out where to place each of them in the chain design. Next, she incorporates the “ruler-cut piecing” technique, showing how to construct a ramshackle sawtooth star quilt by sewing half-square triangles at imperfect angles and trimming the lopsided edges against a ruler. Additional techniques are even more distinctive, including “wonky log cabin” blocks made from irregularly sized rectangles and half-square triangles with curved lines instead of straight diagonals. The quilts become more impressive the farther they stray from the neat geometry of traditional quilts. The “scrap-bin cleanout” quilt involves assembling bits of leftover fabric in an elaborate collage of rectangles, while the “rainbow arcs” project juxtaposes deliberately lopsided arcs of color with sawtooth blocks that resemble the jagged shapes used to emphasize comic book punches. The asymmetrical designs offer a refreshing departure from standard quilting fare, and an extensive section on color theory will aid readers in creating harmonious compositions from their fabric scraps. This is sure to get quilters’ creative juices flowing.
* Publishers Weekly *Laura Loewen is the owner of Quilt Fort Company, a modern quilt artist, pattern designer, and quilt educator. Since making her first quilt as a teenager, her style has grown more experimental, and she now has over twenty years of quilting experience with a love of colour and improv. Laura's award-winning quilts have been shown at galleries and museums, including the National Quilt Museum, and her work has been published in Simply Moderne, Curated Quilts, Quiltmaker, QuiltCon Magazine, and more. Laura has exhibited quilts at QuiltCon (#quiltcon) in 2019 and 2020, and in 2020 her More Is More quilt won 1st Place in the Appliqué category.
She has a professional background in interior design and photography, and spends her days at home raising her two boys outside Boulder, Colorado in the US.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781800921726 |
| ISBN 10 | 1800921721 |
| Title | Improv Quilts |
| Author | Laura Loewen |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Search Press Ltd |
| Year published | 2025-01-10 |
| Number of pages | 128 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |