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Create Your Own Improv Quilts: Modern Quilting with No Rules & No Rulers
A natural follow-up to the best-selling Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts, this book applies Rayna's no rules, no mistakes, no worries style to modern quilting. Starting with strips and geometric shapes, you'll cut and sew without patterns, required yardage, or complicated diagrams. This freeing method lets you create modern quilts organically as you follow your instincts, ask "what if…?", and experiment with scale, color, value, and placement.
- GenresQuiltingNonfictionCrafts
98 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 1, 2017
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27 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 20, 2020
"This has been a labor of both love and insanity. The love part was having an idea and doing the writing. The insanity was starting a book before I had a single quilt to show as an example."
Not a good way to start a how-to quilting book, huh.
The author was embarrassingly arrogant. She reminded me of high school when my friends and I tried to do the whole, I liked this before it was cool. Here is the first instance of this author trying that, "Around 1996, I ditched the patterns and the ruler (except for trimming edges or cutting geometric shapes). Little did I know that the Whitney Museum Gee’s Bend exhibit in 2003 would usher in a new era of what I was already doing: wonky, improv, original work."
Embarrassing.
But oh, we don't stop there. "Since that is the way I have been working for two decades (Someone said to me recently, “You were modern before there was modern.”)"
She REALLY wants us to know she was doing things before other people were doing them.
Also, she has an entire section on "ETHNIC" fabric. And in this case, ethnic means "not white." It's always so cringe when quilters say this stuff. Have a little self-awareness, would ya?
And lastly, let's just rename common shapes, "A square is a rectangle with four equal sides—let’s call it a fat rectangle."
Please.
Not a good way to start a how-to quilting book, huh.
The author was embarrassingly arrogant. She reminded me of high school when my friends and I tried to do the whole, I liked this before it was cool. Here is the first instance of this author trying that, "Around 1996, I ditched the patterns and the ruler (except for trimming edges or cutting geometric shapes). Little did I know that the Whitney Museum Gee’s Bend exhibit in 2003 would usher in a new era of what I was already doing: wonky, improv, original work."
Embarrassing.
But oh, we don't stop there. "Since that is the way I have been working for two decades (Someone said to me recently, “You were modern before there was modern.”)"
She REALLY wants us to know she was doing things before other people were doing them.
Also, she has an entire section on "ETHNIC" fabric. And in this case, ethnic means "not white." It's always so cringe when quilters say this stuff. Have a little self-awareness, would ya?
And lastly, let's just rename common shapes, "A square is a rectangle with four equal sides—let’s call it a fat rectangle."
Please.
December 1, 2024
I have been quilting off and on for 50 years, but I am brand new to the concept of improvisational quilting. I do better when someone else picks out the pattern and I do my own version of it. If I really like the pattern I might do several versions. So the idea of starting with a concept, or even just starting, no concept is alien to me as a quilter.
Then in 2024 I went to my first QuiltCon. My mind was blown.
There was so much more to quilting than what I had explored and there were so many ways to explore it. I joined a Modern Quilt Guild and while I struggled to make meetings and also to make progress, I felt like I was on a new quilting path.
At our guild's fall retreat a recommended reading list was developed and this book was on it.
Finally, something that spoke to me and how I need a starting point in order to quilt. It is a relatively slim volume but one that is packed full of ideas and places to start with your own improv quilts.
She gives her idea of what exactly improve quilts consist of, how she approaches her own work, and walks through her creative process as a way of teaching the reader how to start.
There are several chapters that are "start here" options, from string piecing to having a shape in mind and following it to starting small and seeing where it takes you.
I would recommend this to someone who is hoping to make something totally their own but doesn't know where to start. Start here.
Then in 2024 I went to my first QuiltCon. My mind was blown.
There was so much more to quilting than what I had explored and there were so many ways to explore it. I joined a Modern Quilt Guild and while I struggled to make meetings and also to make progress, I felt like I was on a new quilting path.
At our guild's fall retreat a recommended reading list was developed and this book was on it.
Finally, something that spoke to me and how I need a starting point in order to quilt. It is a relatively slim volume but one that is packed full of ideas and places to start with your own improv quilts.
She gives her idea of what exactly improve quilts consist of, how she approaches her own work, and walks through her creative process as a way of teaching the reader how to start.
There are several chapters that are "start here" options, from string piecing to having a shape in mind and following it to starting small and seeing where it takes you.
I would recommend this to someone who is hoping to make something totally their own but doesn't know where to start. Start here.
March 20, 2018
Printed in the USA!! Library book. I think this is more of an art book than a quilting book, but I'm still tempted to buy it when my current quilt-book moratorium runs out. Great use of counter examples and photos of a project as it proceeds and changes for the good or not! The "quilts" are smaller pieces of display art. There's only one bed size and a couple lap-ish size. Most are less than 24". That's probably why she uses paper piecing so much. Lots & lots of solid colors. Nevertheless, the book is useful to quilters making larger quilts (to be used and handled every day) re her approach both to a quilter's attitude and use of color & composition. Her artistic method is well described and illustrated. I also value the photos showing how straight line quilting was used so artistically. Quote from forward: "...it was impossible for me to write about the process without having first made the piece. That meant I had to experiment as I went along, discover what worked and what didn't, make a quilt, and then write." Does that imply there are quilting books where the author did not make the quilts???
November 14, 2020
I dislike sewing and favor crochet, so this book was never written for me.
Still, I chose this e-library book to see how a quilter looked at color and design and improvised. (I find inspiration in looking at design from different angles. ) Now I have new ideas about making a journal page layout out of balanced shapes or a way to distinguish pattern neutrals from bold patterns —take a black and white picture of them together. I almost see what makes a pattern modern instead of dated. This insight is fascinating because of how retro pattern design has come back - which ones are welcomed and which ones still stay dated?
Yet, most of the chapters appear to just guide you to cut fabric from squares, mix them up, see them together, look at them again, and just experiment. Also, take lots of pictures everywhere for color inspiration and look at art. Perhaps this is all the encouragement a quilter needs, but I thought there would be more insider tricks on making nifty new compositions or more variety among the examples.
I still liked skimming this very short book for a taste of another crafter’s hobby.
Still, I chose this e-library book to see how a quilter looked at color and design and improvised. (I find inspiration in looking at design from different angles. ) Now I have new ideas about making a journal page layout out of balanced shapes or a way to distinguish pattern neutrals from bold patterns —take a black and white picture of them together. I almost see what makes a pattern modern instead of dated. This insight is fascinating because of how retro pattern design has come back - which ones are welcomed and which ones still stay dated?
Yet, most of the chapters appear to just guide you to cut fabric from squares, mix them up, see them together, look at them again, and just experiment. Also, take lots of pictures everywhere for color inspiration and look at art. Perhaps this is all the encouragement a quilter needs, but I thought there would be more insider tricks on making nifty new compositions or more variety among the examples.
I still liked skimming this very short book for a taste of another crafter’s hobby.
October 19, 2024
Not unlike her 2011 book on free-form quilts; Gillman is primarily refining her ideas here. She is updating to include repro prints, recycled fabrics, batiks, and modern ethnic fabrics, starting with three colors and the rectangle shape. Strips are here again, with ways and examples of evaluating design (medallions get a plus), paper piecing (string piecing on the diagonal with only one stitching line to tear around; no-pattern paper piecing, for example, to pop a small tringle into a larger rectangle), and repurposing used blocks. Gillman tends here to work with pieces in the 10-12” square range up to 25-40” square and to finish-quilt in straight lines
October 16, 2021
I am an advanced beginner when it comes to quilting. I am largely self-taught (with the assistance of various YouTube videos).
Loved this book!!
As with many quilting books, some of the ideas resonated and some did not. Among those that did, the idea of "auditioning" colors (I sort of do that instinctively, but it's nice to see this in print) and not feeling compelled to complete everything you've started (save the blocks for later).
Loved this book!!
As with many quilting books, some of the ideas resonated and some did not. Among those that did, the idea of "auditioning" colors (I sort of do that instinctively, but it's nice to see this in print) and not feeling compelled to complete everything you've started (save the blocks for later).
August 27, 2021
I am a quilter who likes making scrap quilts. One of my favorite pattern (or non-pattern) are string quilts. Rayna's book gave me more ideas on how to make these type of quilts the improv way. I also like that Rayna introduced the readers to other improv quilters such as Debbie Anderson, Catherine Whall Smith, and Cindy Grisdela. I look forward to reading more books by Rayna.
February 4, 2019
eye candy and inspiration for transforming oneself from traditional to modern quilting.
the one tip I took from this is that I can check fabric contrast by changing the setting of my camera to B&W and looking at the fabric that way.
the one tip I took from this is that I can check fabric contrast by changing the setting of my camera to B&W and looking at the fabric that way.
June 5, 2020
A Mind Bender!
This book opened my mind to so many possibilities! Thank you, Reyna. This is the reason I started quilting, from a garment sewing background- to make art!
This book opened my mind to so many possibilities! Thank you, Reyna. This is the reason I started quilting, from a garment sewing background- to make art!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews