Nicholas Ball is an improv quilter from South Wales. After graduating from Art School in 2006 with a degree in Photography , his intention was to have a career in photography and take photographs for the cover of Vogue magazine. However, after a few years in Paris he moved back to Wales where his love of crafts and textiles took over.
With a cheap sewing machine and some questionable fabrics and threads the quilting bug bit. Inspired by pictures of sliced leeks in a magazine article about leek and potato soup, he created his first quarter, along with a red cabbage, carrots and tomato for the Vegetable Patch Quilt. This quilt started his love for improvised quilting where ‘wonky’ and the use of ‘scraps of random pieces of fabric’ ( both of which are the stereotypical attitudes of some people when asked what Improv quilting is) is fine. There is no pattern or specific instructions, the process being an organic one with a lot of inspiration taken from the natural world.
Nicholas showed us more of his work, each one being a one off, unique piece. In the ‘Squares and Triangles’ pieces he described the ‘negative space’ where not every rectangle had to have a triangle in it. In ‘Blooming Borders’ he explained how the curved edges of the horizontal panels added contrast to the straight lines of the strips of different coloured fabrics. He also explained how he ‘listens’ to the quilts and the designs which is why the edges or irregular and wonky.
In ‘Shoal’ he explained how he was inspired by a simple drawing his grandmother did of fish. Using lots of negative space he was able to give the impression that the shoal was swimming from one side of the quilt to the other. ‘Just Keep Swimming’ was made during the lockdown of 2020 when doing online workshops he had participants from all but one continent!
The final piece he showed us was ‘How to Age a Tree’ This was inspired by Yosemite National Park. It is a large piece that, during the making, because of the varying grains of the individual pieces of fabric, took on a bow shape. He tried to rectify this by cutting a notch out of the ring pattern but that did not work. So, having already sent the piece to his quilter, he told her to ‘cut the bloody thing in half’! The finished piece was photographed hanging from the trees in Yosemite and what an awe inspiring place it is. As he said, everyone makes mistakes, if it doesn’t fit, cut a iece off. At the end of the day it will be far better than if you had not.
With grateful thanks to Lindsey Sherwood for the text and Vernice Church for the photographs which are used with agreement form Nicholas Ball
