The Uncommon Quilter: Small Art Quilts Created with Paper, Plastic, Fiber, and Surface Design [Paperback]

Jeanne Williamson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 9, 2007

In 1999, fiber artist Jeanne Williamson decided to expand her creative horizons by making one small quilt a week. She placed no limits on what materials she could use–in fact, she created her quilts almost exclusively from found objects, incorporating everything from newspaper and cupcake wrappers to fall leaves and funky yarns into her mixed-media art quilts. The goal was simply to create.

Seven years later, Williamson now has 365 varied and intriguing quilts full of personal stories, experiences, and observations. She also discovered that she had succeeded in expanding her creative horizons–and her artwork has flourished as a result.

Now, in The Uncommon Quilter, Williamson provides quilters, sewers, paper crafters, and mixed-media mavens with 52 projects for creating unique small quilts. The book is divided by the type of medium or technique used in each project–Plastic, Paper, Surface Design, and Fiber–and each contains innovative ideas for using everyday materials and found objects. Projects take anywhere from twenty minutes to a few days to make, ensuring that artists can fit creative time into their busy lives.

With charming anecdotes and clear, step-by-step instructions, The Uncommon Quilter is an inspiring, insightful guide to creating unique small quilts for self-expression, creativity, and personal and artistic growth.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

JEANNE WILLIAMSON’s works are exhibited in galleries and museums all over the world and have been published in many books and magazines. She lives with her family in Natick, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Potter Craft (October 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307381226
• ISBN-13: 978-0307381224
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 0.8 x 10.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #327,848 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeanne Williamson is a visual artist. She combines printmaking, painting, collage, and stitching in her artwork. Her work can be seen in galleries and museums all over the world, in many books and magazines, on television, and on her website, www.jeannewilliamson.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great resource for ideas, October 17, 2007

By 

Laura Senier - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Uncommon Quilter: Small Art Quilts Created with Paper, Plastic, Fiber, and Surface Design (Paperback)

This book is a product of a great experiment: how to use quilting and fiber craft to create a multimedia journal of your everyday life. The author created a small quilt a week for seven years, and the book contains many beautiful examples. Rather than just being an artist's retrospective, however, the book shows you how to work in a similar fashion. I doubt that many people will actually follow the step-by-step instructions to recreate the specific quilts shown here, but the book is a gold mine of ideas about how to use fun, "found" objects (e.g., dryer lint, onion bags, plastic sushi grass, shredded paper) in creating quilts and small works of art. My one quibble with the book is that it would have been better with a spiral binding (so it would lie flat and make it easier to consult while you are working). But all in all, it's a brilliant and very user friendly guide showing you how to incorporate elements of your everyday life in your art.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A creative license for quilt makers, October 16, 2007

By 

Gloria Hansen "Gloria Hansen" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Uncommon Quilter: Small Art Quilts Created with Paper, Plastic, Fiber, and Surface Design (Paperback)

Very inspiring. The book details the thinking behind and instructions for each of the 52 small quilts in the book.

I found a line in the book that sums it up best:
"whether certain quilts were good or bad is not the point; the point is that I made the time to try new things, that I took risks, and that I learned a lot. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself, both artistically and personally."

The book is a creative license of sorts to think small, experiment, and not worry if a piece is a success or not.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Art of the Ordinary, November 13, 2007

By 

Karen Adelman - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Uncommon Quilter: Small Art Quilts Created with Paper, Plastic, Fiber, and Surface Design (Paperback)

The pleasures of this more-than-a-how-to book run deep. Each small quilt (paired with clear directions) is one of dozens of weekly 'entries' in Jeanne Williamson's fabric-art journal. The works are interesting, often beautiful, in their own right - but even more so when taken together as byproducts of Williamson's year of noticing. She chronicles events, small finds, shapes, colors; and invites the reader to do the same. In a wonderfully unassuming way, Williamson takes the significance of the ephemeral and discarded - well-charted territory in the art world - and entrusts it to the reader. The Uncommon Quilter is a practical, unsentimental testament (and guide) to connecting with the ordinary, and to making of that connection art that is indeed anything but common.