Cultural Fusion Quilts: A Melting Pot of Piecing Traditions . 15 Free-Form Block Projects

by Sujata Shah

Overview

Bold, vibrant, striking—and amazingly easy to make! This collection of 15 modern quilts draws on handmade crafts from India, the American South, and Africa to create a style that’s at once traditional and contemporary, artistic and practical. A simple stack, cut, shuffle, and stitch technique makes the sewing fun for quilters of any level, and also makes every quilt a one-of-a-kind creation. No two are ever alike! The author provides alternate settings, plus an inspiring photo gallery of the crafts that shaped her style. Use these projects to enrich your quilting by bringing in textures, patterns, and colors from around the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607058090
Publisher:	C & T Publishing
Publication date:	12/01/2014
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	558,911
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 10.90(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Sujata Shah is an award-winning quilter and designer who finds inspiration in the rich handmade tradition of her home country, India; the quilts of Gee’s Bend; and African textiles. She lives in Chester Springs, PA. therootconnection.blogspot.com

Table of Contents

Introduction My Journey as a Quilter Freedom Blocks CHECK with Teresa – this name may be changed Fabric Selection The Quilts 1. Crazy Quilt 2. Rail Fence 3. Roman Stripe 4. Hourglass 5. Broken Dishes 6. Windmills 7. Rocky Road to Kansas 8. Lattice 9. Crossroads 10. Square in Square 11. Sunset 12. Zigzag 13. Peppermint Pinwheel 14. Endless Mountains 15. Winter Conclusion About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Sujata Shah takes a different look at traditional blocks and adds her interpretation with 15 simple and fun free-form block projects in Cultural Fusion Quilts: A Melting Pot of Piecing Traditions.

June/July 2015 McCall's Quick Quilts

I love everything about Indian design and color and this book rocked me from the opening and short show-n-tell of hand embroidered wallhangings, and printed fabrics. I love the techniques that the designer shows us in her book although they are not totally unfamiliar to me, as American free-form quilters have been using, teaching, and writing about these techniques for years. Yet, for some reason, the work and process spelled out in this book is speaking to me now. Wow. Maybe it’s because the focus and simplicity of both the quiltmaking and the process of patchwork, has been unabashedly simplified and not used as a mere precursor for some kind of unattainable museum-worthy free form fabric masterpiece. All of her piecework is so liberating and freeing and, it had occurred to me, this freedom in cutting and free-form sewing might be just the thing a bored quilter might need to get out of her/his creative rut. I also want to give Shah props for including the additional layer of fiber-interest for including photographs that inspired her individual projects, like pottery, textiles, carved wood, African textiles, etc. I really enjoyed reading and learning the effortless techniques Shah teaches us in the book that are used to achieve the different patchwork patterns…

11/24/14 - Mark Lipinski

The author of this book grew up in Mumbai, India, and now lives in Pennsylvania, USA. A graphic designer and quilter, she finds inspiration all over the world- in the quilts from Gee's Bend, the Indian godharis and the bold, colorful fabrics from Africa. In this book she shows how to make vivid, free-form quilts from traditional quilt blocks such as Rail Fence, Windmills or Square in a Square with a simple stack, cut, shuffle, and stitch technique. She also provides alternative setting suggestions for each project. A colorful and inspiring book. Highly recommended!

January 2015 Down Under Quilts Magazine

We’ve featured an extract from this book on page 60 of this month’s issue; if you’ve already looked over Sujata Shah’s Crazy Quilt then you’ll know that the author is an inspired designer. Sujata has a unique perspective on the craft, being born in Mumbai and moving to the USA later. She describes in her introduction how as an adolescent she would love fabrics but found sewing crushingly dull, telling her mother she would ‘rather die than hold a needle’! Later in life, after moving to the States and getting married, she discovered a love of quilting, luckily for us, and took much inspiration from fusing the styles of her native India and American folk art and Amish quilting. The resulting projects are a sight to see! The 15 free form block projects featured in this book are a celebration of this “melting pot,” and brim with ideas. The book is accompanied, refreshingly, with photographs illustrating some of the inspirations and stories behind the projects, and it’s a pleasure to see how Sujata has translated them into works of quilted excellence.

May 2015 Popular Patchwork