Christensen - Quilts with an angle: new foolproof grid method & easy strip cutting - 15 projects with triangles, hexagons, diamonds & more

Publisher: Amy Marson Creative Director: Gailen Runge Acquisitions Editor: Roxane Cerda Managing Editor: Liz Aneloski Editor: Karla Menaugh Technical Editor: Debbie Rodgers Cover/Book Designer: April Mostek Production Coordinator: Tim Manibusan Production Editor: Jennifer Warren Illustrator: Kirstie Pettersen Photo Assistant: Mai Yong Vang Style photography by Lucy Glover and Kelly Burgoyne; instructional photography by Mai Yong Vang of C&T Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted Published by C&T Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 1456, Lafayette, CA 94549 DedicationDedicated to the memory of Helen Elizabeth Boddington, 19572017. Original art by Jenny Boddington Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following people for their help in writing this book: Sue Burnett of Busy Bee Quilt Shop for her longarm quilting. Noeline Day for her longarm quilting on Pot of Gold. Binding queen Vickye Rhind, who did the binding on all except one of the quilts. My quilting friends Brenda Hilston and Linda Graham, who give support and critique and always seem to know which one is needed. Jenny Boddington, illustrator extraordinaire, for her technical help with the design on Bejewelled and for general moral support.

My fantastic pattern testers: Sheryl Anicich, Lyn Bell, Noeline Day, Kaye Hamer, Sue Kippen, Helen Malanchak, Adrienne Nelson, Adrianne Reid, Vickye Rhind, Sheila Skene, Wendy Welsh, Sheila Williamson, and Jan Wills. All the wonderful and inspiring teachers who have generously shared their knowledge as I learned to sew and quiltincluding Kathy Doughty, who wrote the foreword for this book. Every class I have taken has added a new dimension to my learning. My New Zealand quilting sisterhood including Wairarapa Quilters, Capital Quilters, and Aotearoa Quilterswho are always so inspiring. Robert Kaufman Fabrics for providing the fabric for Misty Morning and Shadowflower. Alex Veronelli of Aurifil Threads for providing the threads for piecing and quilting.

Clover, OLFA, and Creative Grids for supplying tools for the step-by-step photos. My C&T family. My customers and students at Quilters Lane for their continued support. Without them, I would not be able to indulge my passion for designing new patterns. And finally my wonderful husband, Carl, who kept the world turning while I was writing and never complained once. FOREWORD I met Sheila Christensen several years back when teaching in New Zealand. FOREWORD I met Sheila Christensen several years back when teaching in New Zealand.

It was my first visit to that country, and I was overwhelmed by the artistic nature of the quilters living there. Surrounded by wildly beautiful landscapes, isolated from the hustle and bustle of the world it seemed a breeding ground for uniqueness and uninhibited creativity. The wonder of the place and people has stayed with me. At that time, Sheila was about to embark on her new adventure: the patchwork shop. I could tell by the light in her eyes, her earnest nature, and her many questions that she was the right type for the job. Open, friendly, eager, and so enthusiasticthese qualities make a great patchwork shop owner! Feeling safe is a good start to making! Over the years I have watched her progress as she took on one challenge after another, growing in experience and skill.

Patchwork shops are the perfect place to fine-tune, expand, and define quilting skills. The sheer volume of working with different quilters and styles lends us an understanding of not only the best products or methods but also the mind-set of a quilter. There is evidence on each page of this book that Sheila has been paying attention. There are many things to consider when embarking on a quilting project, and it never hurts to stop and review them all. The first thing I noticed is the easy math language and pointers for getting started. Its clear that Sheilas experience has helped her to develop a language that will speak to quilters at the start of their quilting experience as well as to those that are well on their way.

In either case, getting started with the right direction makes the process more rewarding. Tools, techniques, fabrics, and designs all work simultaneously together to create unique and beautiful projects to show off! Making a quilt is a steady balance of technique and vision. A good book not only guides us through the methods of construction but also considers creating space for a variety of approaches to style and taste. A good book can open the mind to new ways of seeing what we already know. Any one of the many projects combined with the outlined color strategies, the 60 shapes, and your stash will help you achieve the results that you desire. Enjoy your travels through these wonderful shapes with Sheila! Kathy Doughty is a self-taught quilter, fabric designer, and author.

She designs fabrics for FreeSpirit Fabrics and is the owner of Material Obsession, a patchwork shop in Sydney, Australia. INTRODUCTION One of the things I love about quilting is that the design possibilities are endless. Whenever one design is completed, ideas for a myriad of others take its place. Ideas build on previous patterns from our quilting heritage and from different cultures, art, and architecture. Each quilting technique has its own language. If you use squares and rectangles, you will understand what a half-square triangle is and how to cut a quarter-square triangle. You can find charts that tell you what size quarter-square triangle to cut to achieve a certain size of square.

If you are an English paper-piecing aficionado, you understand that you can put together pieces with edges of equal sizes. These rules allow you to try out new ideas within the technique that you are most comfortable with. In writing this book, I have tried to develop a set of techniques and a language that will allow quilters to play in a new sandboxthe 60 shape. Although these shapes have been widely used in quilts, there has never been a standard way of measuring for rotary cutting and machine piecing these shapes. Quilt designs based on a 60 grid can look very complex, but once they are broken down into blocks, you will see how easy it is to put them together. When designing my blocks, I wanted to make sure that they could easily be sewn using straightforward rotary-cutting and machine-piecing techniques.

All of the quilts in this book can be made by anyone who is used to cutting and sewing squares, rectangles, and half-square triangles. You will soon be making blocks and turning them into amazing quilts with an angle! You can generate all sorts of interesting patterns with different placements of these blocks. Just like combining square-shaped blocks, the possibilities are endless. Triangular Grids The key to creating my blocks was to use a grid made up of triangles. Just as a square grid can be broken down into squares, rectangles, half-square triangles, and so on to create thousands of traditional blocks, a triangular grid can be combined into triangles, diamonds, parallelograms, trapezoids, hexagons, and jewels.