"Dwellings" by Rayna Gillman
Yay!! Can you see me doing a little happy dance over here? Rayna Gillman’s new book, Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts, is my latest obsession. I think the book’s subtitle says it all…A Stress-Free Journey to Original Design. Two things that really float my own creative boat are “stress-free” and “original design.” One of Rayna’s personal tenets of design is also my own artistic mantra…there’s no such thing as a mistake!
This book shows you how to use free-form cutting and piecing techniques to bring some spontaneity to your quiltmaking using commercial fabrics, hand-dyes, hand-prints, leftover stashy bits, or even those not-so-pretty blocks you made oh-so-long-ago that have been sitting in a drawer for who-knows-how-long.
Rayna’s improvisational approach removes the fretting over straight edges or matching seams; she really knows how to transform the wonky into the beautiful! I think every single picture in this book is pure eye candy…from the inspiring finished quilts that Rayna and her students have made right down to the how-to shots of unusual combinations of fabric strips. She also proves that you really can make the most out of fabrics you’re not so fond of.
By sewing bits and pieces of different fabrics together into units with larger elements, before you know it, your imagination will spark and evolve and voilà…you create a truly original quilt!
As with my previous book, Create Your Own Hand-Printed Cloth, this is a process book that will take you on a journey where you can play, experiment, and make some detours along the way. The destination will be a surprise, but you’ll know when you have arrived. —Rayna Gillman
One lucky person will win a copy of Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts! To enter, leave a comment telling us how you might have turned a mistake into a design opportunity in your own quiltmaking, fiber art, or crafting.
Comments will be closed at 6:00 pm PST on Sunday, November 13, 2011—the winner will be contacted via email and their name will be posted here on the blog next week.
Increase your chances to win! Enter an extra comment for each of the actions you take below. Tell us what you did and thanks in advance for spreading the word!
- Sign in to your Amazon account and hit the “like” button for this book
- Sign up for the PatternSpot.com Shopper eNewsletter
- Make us one of your Flickr contacts
- Subscribe to our YouTube channel
- Like us on Facebook
- Join our Creative Troupe
Congrats to Cheryl, whose name was drawn at random from the comments on last week’s post. Linda won a copy of 50 Little Paper-Pieced Blocks plus a set of Carol Doak’s Keepsake Frame Cards.
Related posts:
135 Comments
I WANT this book – Rayna is an AMAZING artist & friend. I have her first book & look forward to seeing this one!!!
I tweeted, FB and Google Plus sed!
I made a free-form crib quilt for my daughter with some princess fabric and wonky log cabins from scraps. I also used magenta pink corduroy left over from a purse for the borders. It’s pretty cool!
Some of my best projects have come from mistakes. I’ve concluded that I need a certain amount of “unplanned opportunities” and I now tend to only half plan my projects and let them develop. I think this book would be great to help me with my design process.
Love the title and concept. I enjoyed the previous book so I am very interested in this one. I like to try to take a mistake and make something better out of it, like cutting too heartily on a rail fence, ending up with little three patch rows which ended up in a wild nine-patch…
‘Liked’ on Amazon!
Added CT as a contact at Flickr!
Subscribed to PatternSpot newsletter.
Wow what an incredible work of art!! This quilt is pure magic! I have often made “mistakes” in my art but I try to try any error into a new opportunity to look at things in a new way! There is in my opinion no right or wrong in your art! There is only ART!!! happy creating all!!
looks like an interesting book… I’m not so sure about free-form quilting myself… I like to plan…
The second time I free motion quilted I picked a design that was too complicated for my ability. After making mistakes and picking them out a couple of times, I decided I wasn’t going to pick out any more. Instead I turned the free motion quilting into real free motion and adapted the design to my mistakes. It turned out pretty nice!
I have Rayna’s book Create Your Own Hand-Printed Cloth and love it. I would like to have this one too. Thanks for the opportunity!
I like your book, thank you for the change to win it. greetings from liesbeth from the Netherlands
I already signed up for the newsletter
I like you at Facebook
I already joined the creative troup
This sounds like a great approach for people like me who have trouble exactly following a pattern. I ‘liked’ C&T on facebook.
I enjoy Rayna’s blog and would love to have the book. Think she would autograph it?
I liked the book on Amazon!
I subscribed to your you tube channel
I liked you on FaceBook
I joined your troupe
I signed up for Pattern spot
I’m new at quilting so I’m learning a lot from my mistakes. Most how to use a seam ripper! Love the freeform idea. Sometimes it’s hard to let go and have a project design itself.
Liked on Amazon, and added to my Wishlist
Already like CT Pub on Facebook
Already subscribed on Youtube
signed up for PatternSpot
I pre-orederd this book on Amazon. It looks so cool, and I embrace Rayna’s no stress design philosophy. I can’t wait until it comes next month!
Mistakes. I laugh and just continue on if it’s too late to recover. But mostly, I must confess, I rip out and fix. Do I need this book or what?
Liked on FB eons ago!
I liked it on Amazon.
I already like C&T on facebook.
Added Flickr contact.
YouTube subscription… check.
Signed up for PatternSpot,
Joined the Troupe!
I would love to win this book. I am very interested in making free-form quilts.. My fingers are crossed…..pick me!
Abslutely love to have this book. I follow Rayna’s blog.
I’m already a fan and like you on FB.
Rayna’s book is on my ‘wish list’ at Amazon.
I definitely need to be more free-form!
I want this book! It looks like so much fun! I once turned evenly-spaced-straight-line-quilting-gone-wrong into a plaid effect – and I’ve used it many times since.
I’m already a subscriber to your YouTube channel.
I often have days when I just play with painted fabric or paper with no project in mind. Then, when I need something to add to a collage or art quilt, I rummage through my stash until I find just what I need! Would LOVE this book.
I may not qualify for this giveaway as I’m in Australia, but I just love Rayna’s first book, and have used her ideas many times to rescue a dying or printing ‘ugly’. I am so looking forward to having the new one to play with.
Almost every quilt I make has some surprise but the one I’m working on now is a scrappy batik “world without end”. I put all my small units into blocks and discovered the quilt wasn’t big enough so I had to get a few more batiks so I could keep the additional blocks scrappy…such a tough life to have to shop for more fabric!
I’m ready to work “out of the box”.
This looks like a great book!
I have had color bleed in a quilt from glue. Okay so I didn’t prewash. It made me realize that a red flower was what would make that quilt space come alive and cover up the spot as well!
Oh total yummy fabulousness. Look at the cover, look at the sample from the book…it’s just free-form fantastic! I want it. I need it. Please, oh please, let me win it!
Mistakes?! There are no mistakes…just layers. I over-paint and over-print on fabric all the time.
I liked this awesome book on Amazon.
I get the PatternSpot.com newsletter.
I have C&T Publishing as a contact on Flickr!
I’m a subscriber to CandTPublishing on YouTube.
You are definitely a LIKE on FB!
And, I’m a member of your Creative Troupe!!
I love Rayna! She’s amazing as a quilt artist and as a person. Always so warm and friendly.
I actually love it when I make a mistake in a quilt as I see it as a creative opportunity. Usually, it forces me to “think outside the box” and I’m always happier with my results than I would have been otherwise.
I want and NEED this book!! Thanks!
I’m a member of Creative Troupe
I like you on FB
I subscribe to the Pattern Spot newsletter
I like this book on Amazon
I have Rayna’s first book and must have this one! Recently I cut up a bunch of squares to make two traditional blocks for a lottery. Just before I cut them to make the shapes, I realized that my squares were not big enough. So I just cut some diagonals, mixed them up, and put them back together again, to make one block.
I ‘like’ the book on Amazon.
I am signed up for the pattern.com newsletter.
I have you as a Flickr contact.
I am subscribed to your YouTube channel.
This is definitely a book I will have to have!
I am part of the Creative Troupe
I’m subscribed to YouTube channel!
I’m a subscriber to Pattern Spot
“Like”d it on Amazon
I “like”d you on Facebook
I have a group of blocks left orphaned after I diverted their companion blocks for another project. They’re weird by themselves, so maybe some slicing-and dicing would make them play nicely with other oddments.
I keep any project pieces with “mistakes” and am sometimes able to rework them for a different project, usually learning something along with way.
thanks!
I don’t think I have done that yet, but I have had many quilts take on their own identity as I go along, & many times I end up with something completely different from my original design idea. I really like the idea of making something starting out with all those odd blocks in my cast-off box of quilt blocks. That sounds fun and freeing!
Have a super day!
Jennifer
I like to make rubber stamped cards, but it’s often hard to make a perfect impression. I save all those not quite perfect prints, and they become the starting point for explorations in different coloring and embellishing techniques, and eventually a stash for collages. I’m excited by the idea of printing on fabric, and using fabric as a medium for collage.
I Liked this book on amazon.
I signed up for Patternspot
This could be just the push I’ve been needing to take my quilting to another level. Would love to win this book. Thanks!
I am a member of Creative Troupe.
This looks like a great book. I tried to do some painting on fabric and it turned out horrible. I was simply painting some stems on a flower. I just appliqued another flower on top. Part of the painted stem still shows but it doesn’t look bad now.
I clicked the like button Amazon. I didn’t even know there was a like button there until now, but I found it, and I clicked it.
I once started a quilt and didn’t like it so I cut it up and remade pieces into other quilts.
I “liked” this on Amazon and preordered
I dropped a bottle of pet enzymes onto a bed quilt in progress; the alcohol inked designs bled, and so it became a dog bed that quite improved the air quality in the “dog room” for quite some time!
edie
Oh my goodness, I would love this book!!! I follow Rayna’s adventures on her blog and have used her first book in some fabric printing. I keep a lot of my mistakes and castoffs which I cut up and use again in scrappy projects.
i follow you on facebook!
I subscribe to the youtube channel!
I “liked” the book on Amazon (it’s on my wishlist too!) and I am a member of your Creative Troupe!
I did just this with a throw am making right now for my DH… he was a trucker-retired now. I found some Fabric with 18-wheelers and have cut and whacked to come up with a design that fits and suits him.
I love Rayna Gillman’s books. LOVE YOUR BLOG…
I’d love to win this book. I’m a big fan of Rayna’s.
It’s amazing to me how freeing it can be to cut a “failed” project into pieces. Wonderful new perspectives emerge!
This looks like a fabulous book!
I am SO ready for this book and have tons of fabric that can hardly wait for me to put them on a wall in some artistic form like this! Thanks!
oooo, Congrats to who ever the winner is. What an amazing looking book!
This book looks fabulous, but then, all the C&T Books are! I need a little freeforming in my life.
I have some old pieced fabric squares that don’t really go to anything. I have been couching yarns over them and beading on them to turn them into something useable… great for bag pockets… etc…
sew awesome! would lovvve to try these!
I’ve never make a recipe or pattern without adding my own twist! I hope the next book is titled “Create Your Own Free-Form Life.”
I’d love to have a copy of this book – it looks fabulous!
I would love love love to have this book – I’ve been searching online for something like this, and have found a little, but it would be so great to have a resource that I could refer to over and over again -thank you for the chance to win!
I’m always making ‘mistakes’ – but it’s art, so it doesn’t matter – who would know ;o)
I have ‘liked’ on Amazon…
I am a member of the Creative Troupe…
I have signed up for the PatternSpot.com Shopper eNewsletter…
C&T is one of my Flickr contacts…
I subscribe to your YouTube channel…
I like you on Facebook…
Very cool! I liked it on Amazon and FB.
I tend to work free form, the more I plan something the more I have to end up working with creative solutions to all of my boo-boos.
I would love to win Rayna’s new book. I love her work and her generousity to the quilting community. My creative life is full of make lemonade moments – especially when something spills, which is often. I keep torn up light colored sheets and old boyfriend shirts handy when I paint or dye. These drip cloths and cleanup cloths are often so wonderful. I use them frequently in my work.
I joined the Creative Troupe too! I’m really looking forward to this.
I liked the book on Amazon.com
I liked C&T on Facebook – This is fun!
I have some old pieced blocks that have languished for years. This book sounds like just the jump start I need to transform them into something delightful. Thanks for the opportunity.
Judi
I was unhappy with the degree of contrast in a photo collage on painted fabric, so I made a lower-contrast version that was otherwise identical. The reject served me well as a place to experiment with stitching patterns before inflicting them on the preferred background. The final piece has been juried into a regional SAQA show, so there!
Magnificent!!! I adore Rayna and look forward to being able to do something with the “orphan” blocks I have…. um… I have a few of them. ::: rolls eyes ::::
Thanks bunches
Christina
I have so many UFOs…and more than one of them could be re-energized by thinking about it in a new way!
Liked on Amazon!
Subscribed to the YouTube channel.
Liked you on Facebook.
With my quilting it’s generally more a case of happy accidents than mistakes.
Being a Crazy Quilter, I love to fix mistakes with opportunities!
Would love to add this book to my collection! One of the first pieces that I sold started as a mistake. I kept working on it, changed color schemes and even though I was getting very frustrated, I stayed with it and it turned into one of my favorites. Persistence can be a great friend to our art.
great book, and when something i do dont turn out the way i wanted it to i just sit it aside and then later on cut it up with others and sew together to form crazy blocks
have just the right fabrics and scraps to do this style of quilting….now I just need the book!!! Keep up the good work, great review on Amazon!
I would love to win this book. I have liked you on facebook, i have liked the book on Amazon, I have subscribed to your utube videos.
Subscribed to PatternSpot
Liked the book on Amazon
I have often changed my final design to accommodate an unexpected problem. Sometimes it means redoing or adding or subtracting an element and sometimes it means starting over.
Sometimes life is so structured – not unlike piecing. Would love to be able to just let go for once. Would love to receive the book.
This book looks awesome! I’ve often turned a cutting mistake into a new look!
Just liked the book on my amazon account!
oops! I missed the deadline, but liked it anyway on Amazon. Looks like a great book!
Would love to get her new book, she is awesome! Your choice of books to publish is awesome too!