I've always been intrigued by curved piecing in quilts and have enough practice under my belt now to feel more confident about trying a bigger project. But the projects in Simple Circles and Quick Curves, by Nancy Mahoney, use machine applique for all the curved pieces, not piecing. No matter, there's some good inspiration in this book, even if I decide to go with piecing rather than applique to achieve the same effect.
There are eight projects in the book, all interesting, but I particularly like two of them. The first is Lots of Dots, a scrap quilt. For the dots on this quilt, applique is best way to go. I think this design would be great in 30's repro fabric. The author used a wide assortment of polka dot and circle printed fabric for her version.
The second project that grabbed my attention is Passion Vine. This design combines a tradtional looking applique block (the directions are for fusible applique) with a block called improved nine patch. The circular effect is achieved by applying arcs of the applique block background fabric on each side of a nine patch block. This techique could also be used for a Rob Peter to Pay Paul block.
The author, Nancy Mahoney, has a tutorial for the applique technique on YouTube.
Oooh, looks like a fun book. I'd love to make either of those quilts!
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