Artful Improv: Explore Color Recipes, Building Blocks & Free-Motion Quilting

By Cindy Grisdela

“Do away with patterns and embrace your creative spirit with this vibrant and fun book.” —Quilting Arts 

With simple design principles, you can create unique improvisational quilts. Without using patterns, learn five easy piecing techniques for your improvisational toolbox (including circles, blocks, and strips), and watch the art unfold before your eyes. Focus on color combos and negative space to discover your personal style—and then add dazzling texture with free-motion quilting.

Also included is information on hanging finished art quilts without a sleeve, plus tried and true improv tips to encourage creative play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781617452628

Cindy Grisdela

Cindy Grisdela is an award-winning fiber artist with over 30 years of experience creating eye-catching quilts. She travels extensively all over the country teaching and lecturing to guilds and groups, and her quilts have been published in books and magazines. She lives in Reston, Virginia. cindygrisdela.com

Book preview

introduction

Red Totem by Cindy Grisdela, 20˝ × 42˝, 2010

Creativity is play. The more you play, the more creative you become.

I’M CONVINCED THAT EVERYONE HAS THE ABILITY TO CREATE. SOMETIMES WE FORGET OUR CREATIVITY IN THE HUSTLE OF DAILY LIFE, BUT IT IS THERE WAITING FOR YOU WHEN YOU ARE READY TO GIVE IT SPACE TO GROW.

One of the secrets to being creative is giving yourself permission to play. It’s okay to make mistakes while you’re trying something new. In fact, if you aren’t making mistakes, you probably aren’t learning as much as you could. Above all, realize that you don’t have to be perfect—you don’t have to share every piece you make with the world, but you’ll learn something even from (or especially from) the mistakes. Embrace them!

Most of us have to start at the beginning. I made my first quilt over 30 years ago, inspired by a picture in a magazine. Since my background was sewing clothes, I made a 4½˝ × 4½˝ template from cardboard for the squares. I carefully cut out all the fabrics with pinking shears, because that’s how I’d always done it. Needless to say, getting an accurate ¼˝ seam under those circumstances was a challenge! Since I knew how to sew already, I assumed that putting together a queen-size quilt for my first project would be a breeze. As you can imagine, it took me several years to piece the quilt on the machine and then quilt it by hand; but I proudly gave it to my husband as a wedding present, crooked stitches and all.

Fascinated by the colors of the fabrics and the textures of the stitches, I learned from my mistakes and continued making mostly traditional quilts for many years. One day it hit me that all the quilts on my walls and on my beds were someone else’s designs. And I realized that it was important to me to create quilts that were uniquely mine. That was the beginning of my transition from traditional to contemporary art quilter.

This transition has been an evolutionary process for me, and it can be for you, too. I started out tweaking traditional designs to give them a more contemporary feel. Butterfly Kisses is based on the traditional Drunkard’s Path pattern, but I used black-and-white batiks paired with a variety of yellow, peach, and orange fabrics to make it more modern. Wild Geese in Flight takes a Flying Geese pattern and supersizes it in an asymmetrical composition, then adds texture with free-motion stitching.

Butterfly Kisses by Cindy Grisdela, 30˝ × 30˝, 2006

One of my first quilts made without a specific pattern

Wild Geese in Flight by Cindy Grisdela, 24˝ × 34˝, 2009

A variation on the traditional Flying Geese pattern with a contemporary feel

Give yourself time to explore ideas that resonate with you. Log Cabin designs have always fascinated me, and I have made a number of traditional ones over the years. If you look at my newer work, you’ll see that I’m still playing with the Log Cabin idea, except that it has evolved into a contemporary improvisational design, often focused on one large block, as in Red Totem.

I hope you’ll be able to take some of the ideas in this book and be inspired to create quilts that are your own, reflecting your own tastes, experiences, and personality.

Embrace your own creative spirit and enjoy the improvisational process.

My creative space

how to use this book

Red Hot Chili Pepper by Cindy Grisdela 18˝ × 37˝, 2009

This quilt shows off Improv Blocks set on point, bordered by curved strips and an irregular edge. A bright Anything Goes color recipe is calmed by large areas of red that act as a resting place for the eye.

Use this book as a resource to help you tap into your own well of creativity and move on to the next level in your artistic journey—whatever that may be. With this book as a guide, you’ll learn how to use simple design principles to create unique art quilts that reflect your own experiences. You’ll feel empowered to let go of rigid rules and piece blocks in an intuitive, free-form fashion, using the basic principles of artistic design to create your own original quilts. Not using a pattern or precise measuring and cutting allows you to work spontaneously, painting with fabric as a painter uses paints on canvas, and then adding another layer of texture with free-motion stitching motifs.

This is a hands-on book—play with the exercises to expand your comfort zone and experiment. Don’t expect to create a masterpiece the first time out. It’s a little bit like learning the alphabet before you move on to reading. Don’t worry about making mistakes; just have fun learning the vocabulary of improvisation.

Creating original quilts is fun and rewarding. Although this process may be most comfortable for intermediate and advanced quilters who are ready to move on from using someone else’s patterns to creating their own designs, it is accessible to anyone who is comfortable using his or her sewing machine and rotary cutting tools.

what is

IMPROVISATION?

Jazz Rhythms by Cindy Grisdela, 35˝ × 56˝, 2009

This design is based on large Improv Blocks in a riot of color with added energy from Angled Stripes. In this Anything Goes color recipe, large blocks of red calm the composition.

What is improvisation? How can you use it to create art?

Many people think of jazz music when they hear the word improvisation, because of the talented musicians who created an art form based on making things

Reviews for Artful Improv

[sandyamcpherson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The most useful part of this book for me was improvising 'on the fly' with offcuts from other projects. As well, the value of negative space plus adding texture with free-motion quilting was very well-illustrated. Many snippets of valuable advice for working improvisionally, such as giving the design time to develop. Since I own Collaborative Quilting, by Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston (2006), this book held many repetitive descriptions and ideas.