Book review: Cut-Loose Quilts by Jan Mullen

We've all experienced the frustration of a pieced block that wasn't quite right, where a couple of points didn't quite match and we threw it into a dusty corner in digust. But what if you deliberately made crooked versions of traditional blocks? Would you end up with a mess, or a vibrant design? Cut-Loose Quilts shows you that it's generally the latter.

There are chapters on rectangles (two-, three-, four-, six-, and nine-patch units), triangles (corner triangles, melon patches, flying geese, broken dishes, Dutchman's puzzle), log-cabins (odd-shaped, square in a square, double square in a square, triple square in a square), curves (drunkard's parth, granny's fan, wedding ring) and combined techniques (butterflies, pinwheels, milky ways, devils claws, snail trails).

Each chapter uses diagrams and step-by-step instructions to explain how to construct the block, then there are patterns for single-block-design quilts giving fabric requirements and how many units of what size to cut and piece plus examples of the machine quilting patterns the author's used. The projects have colour photographs of the 18 sample quilts; the last chapter contains half a dozen examples of crooked-block sampler quilts.

The consensus between myself and those I showed this book too was that some crooked designs work very well, others merely look like poorly constructed blocks. But one thing's for certain, it's liberating to see how well some of them do work!

If you're the kind of person who hasn't the patience to meticulously piece together blocks, you should read this book. If you're the kind of person who does have the patience but who wants to loosen up your work, you should read this book too. And if you've never made a quilt before, you should compare it to a book of traditional designs because you may find you prefer this wackier, "wicked" way.

Cut-Loose Quilts is published by C&T Publishing and can be bought directly from their website or the other big on-line bookstores. ISBN 1-57120-154-8.

Go To Page: 1

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic