I've felt so empowered by my recent attempts at free motion quilting that I decided to invest in yet another book of quilt motifs: 501 Quilting Motifs: Designs for Hand or Machine Quilting.
The book is published by the editors of Quiltmaker magazine. The first thing I noticed about the book is that it is spiral bound so that it will lay flat without needing to be weighted down--always a good feature in a book of this kind. It isn't a book with a lot of pesky words and instructions. Instead, it is just what its title implies: page after page of quilting motifs.
The "welcome" pages discuss motif selection, how to adapt motifs to fit your needs, how to transfer them to your quilt top, how to position them, and how to vary them, depending on a number of factors that might affect how you plan to use a particular motif. There's also a handy chart about marking tools that offers different ideas for marking your quilt and their advantages and disadvantages.
I'm not a person who can draw, and so I'm dependent on these kinds of books to help me along and to give me ideas about what kind of design to use on my quilts. This book contains a multitude of designs that I felt I could do, even with my limited drawing capabilities, and I found myself excited to try some of these out on quilts I have yet to finish. I especially like the fact that some of the discrete designs have suggestions for how to turn them into continuous line designs for free motion quilting--which is probably the only kind of quilting I'm ever going to do.
I can recommend this book for anyone who is interested in increasing their knowledge and repertoire of quilting motifs. Whether you are a hand quilter or a machine quilter, I'm confident you'll find a wealth of fresh ideas and information about applying the designs to your finished quilts.
The book is published by the editors of Quiltmaker magazine. The first thing I noticed about the book is that it is spiral bound so that it will lay flat without needing to be weighted down--always a good feature in a book of this kind. It isn't a book with a lot of pesky words and instructions. Instead, it is just what its title implies: page after page of quilting motifs.
The "welcome" pages discuss motif selection, how to adapt motifs to fit your needs, how to transfer them to your quilt top, how to position them, and how to vary them, depending on a number of factors that might affect how you plan to use a particular motif. There's also a handy chart about marking tools that offers different ideas for marking your quilt and their advantages and disadvantages.
I'm not a person who can draw, and so I'm dependent on these kinds of books to help me along and to give me ideas about what kind of design to use on my quilts. This book contains a multitude of designs that I felt I could do, even with my limited drawing capabilities, and I found myself excited to try some of these out on quilts I have yet to finish. I especially like the fact that some of the discrete designs have suggestions for how to turn them into continuous line designs for free motion quilting--which is probably the only kind of quilting I'm ever going to do.
I can recommend this book for anyone who is interested in increasing their knowledge and repertoire of quilting motifs. Whether you are a hand quilter or a machine quilter, I'm confident you'll find a wealth of fresh ideas and information about applying the designs to your finished quilts.
3 comments:
Thank you for your review - I purchased this recently, too, after participating in the 14 day Free Motion Quilting Challenge http://www.fmqchallenge.blogspot.com
I like books like that, lots of designs to use in a quilt, so nice to have for reference when we are ready to quilt.
Debbie
Barbara, I have several books but not this one. I have never done anything but free-motion quilting with my machine. This is added to my "Want It Now" list. Thanks for a great review.
Jeanne
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