Cultural Fusion Quilts

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. Popular Patchwork, May 2015 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! Down Under Quilts Magazine, January 2015 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… – Mark Lipinski 11/24/14 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. McCall’s Quick Quilts, June/July 2015

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.