Throw your quilts a few curves--and get spectacular results! Best-selling author Karla Alexander takes her Stack the Deck technique in fun new directions with this assortment of 19 eye-popping designs.
- Beginner-friendly techniques take the intimidation out of curved piecing
- Instructions offer you two options: use Creative Grids quilting rulers designed by Karla herself or cut your curves freehand
- Energetic designs feature contemporary fabrics and range from simple to challenging
See Karla demonstrate how to cut and sew curved seams using her Curves for Squares Ruler
See how-to videos for each of Karla's Creative Grids rulers.
No posts found
Karla Alexander's simple stack the deck techniques (previously used with straight line cuts) have inspired thousands of quilts. In her latest book Dynamic Quilts with Easy Curves, she applies this technique to curves. It is a simple premise--you stack your fabrics, and then make one curved cut, shuffle the pile and stitch together again. The results are somewhat serendipitous, but with careful choice of fabrics, can be spectacular. The more complex designs appear intricate and there's plenty of scope for experimentation for novice and experienced quilters alike.
Review from The Bookwatch newsletter
Dynamic Quilts with Easy Curves: 19 Projects to Stack, Shuffle and Sew provides crafters with a fine set of beginner-friendly projects designed to teach the basics of curved piecing without headache. Instructions offer designs by quilter author Karla Alexander as well as opportunities to cut your own curves freehand, and provide designs that use modern fabrics and a range of options. With its color photos and patterns, this is a fine pick for any quilter's library.
Review from Quilt Trends magazine
Quilt designer, teacher, and author Karla Alexander has always been drawn to creating quilts without predetermined outcomes. Her quilt designs are the result of playing with and try out many different techniques, tools, and fabrics--lots and lots of fabrics--to create the most awe-inspiring designs! Karla passes on the spirit of experimentation in her latest book, Dynamic Quilts with Easy Curves. She inspires readers to discover and create their own individual style by providing methods and suggestions with each project.
The first things you notice in this book are all the gentle waves and curves. True to Karla's style of "stacking the deck" and "free-form cutting" detailed in her previous books, she gives explicit instructions for each of the 19 projects (as well as information on using her optional specialty rulers, which make the cutting process even easier). However, with the exception of a few designs, each curve can be replaced by a straight cut. Use your imagination and combine both!
Specific fabric and placement directions are given, but with different colors and block arrangements, you can make the quilts uniquely your own. The projects are meant to be used as inspiration for your own work, are possible for a beginning quilter to make (yet stunning enough for an experienced quilter). Karla's goal is to pass on the liberating possibilities of crating your own designs. She believes the whole process should be a time to create, discover, and enjoy--and use lots and lots of fabrics!
Review from Barbara Rhoades
Curves - UGH! That is my usual feeling when I encounter a quilt that has them. This book shows you how to cope with them. It also combines a stack and whack procedure.
There are 19 patterns to choose from. There is one pattern that has no curves, two that have only a couple of curves and one that has circles. All the rest have curves that are gentler.
The patterns contain the usual finished quilt and block sizes, with the materials and cutting lists. There is a box that contains fabric tips for each set of instructions. Graphics are provided to help make sure you are on target. No quilting suggestions are provided.
The last page has a bio about the author and her web site information. If you want to learn to handle curves, this would be a good book to have in your library.
Karla Alexander
Karla Alexander lives in Salem, Oregon, in a two-story 1950s house where her studio is just outside the breezeway. The household includes her husband, Don, and the studio dog, Lucy.
Karla has written several books on the art of quiltmaking. She also has a pattern line under the name Saginaw Street Quilts and she is a designer for Creative Grids Rulers. As the years have rolled by, she has watched, enjoyed, and been intrigued by the changes in the quilt industry and has always found her niche there, one way or another. Karla is fascinated and inspired by the patterns found in everyday life--baskets, freeways, the view from an airplane window, doorframes, you name it. The patterns she sees are often reinvented as quilts or provide the springboard for many of her designs.
As a teacher, Karla enjoys immersing herself among her students, knowing there is a lot to be learned from each one of them as well.
View more titles by Karla Alexander
You might also like...
