15 Minutes of Play – Improvisational Quilts

Take some time out of your day and play! Learn how to create your own collaged swatches of fabric in just 15 minutes a day using your own scraps. Victoria will show you how to incorporate your “made-fabric” into traditional quilt blocks like Sawtooth Star and Flying Geese. You’ll sharpen your design skills and learn about color combination as you play. A quilt gallery is included to inspire you. Quilter’s Digest, Issue 4; 10/15/12 Follow the 11 challenges to break out of your mold and make improvisational scrap-pieced fabric you can incorporate into quilt blocks. American Patchwork & Quilting, February 2013 Victoria recommends setting aside 15 minutes everyday to be creative and to play. Her idea of play is to freely sew to make “fabric” out of small scraps. Her made-fabric used in traditional blocks gives the blocks a modern look. If the reader has forgotten how to play, the book includes 11 challenges that are designed to loosen up the creative inner child. – Stevii Graves, Journal of the International Quilt Association, July 2010 International Quilt Association Journal, May 28, 2013 More than anything else, this is a book about how to break away from making quilts by copying what others have done and following step-by-step instructions to systematically create a finished piece. Victoria’s emphasis is on process, not product. While she does provide a fairly detailed guide to four different ways of sewing scraps of fabric together to make blocks that you can then cut up and use in your patchwork blocks-‘crumb piecing’, as it is commonly known-her focus in on developing your creative spirit and giving yourself permission to have fun and go with the flow. She sets 11 creative challenges, such as “Use fabric you don’t think you can use” and “Make a medallion quilt from a set of previously-made blocks that never grew into a quilt”. A lot of readers will feel uncomfortable with Victoria’s approach, but you’ll be using loads of tiny scraps of fabric you possibly don’t value all that much-that is, you don’t need to buy or cup up gorgeous yardage. And this approach might be a revelation that opens doors to all kinds of new opportunities. The book includes photographs of lots of quilts made by a cross-section of creative minds. Australian Homespun Magazine, May 2013

Victoria Findlay Wolfe learned to quilt and sew as a child on her family farm; now she teaches and designs full-time. She’s also a painter and a photographer with a degree in fine arts, and she runs a community program that provides quilts to families in need. Victoria lives in Manhattan, New York.