Are you looking for a project to celebrate the change of seasons in a couple of weeks? Look no further. Pat Sloan has 14 joyful table runners, wall hangings, lap quilts and bed quilts to inspire you. She shares her inspiration for each design and includes both appliqué and pieced quilts. For June she offers her “Scrappy Heart Quilt” and for July her “Ocean Waves Quilt.” And I love that the July project is done in Independence Day colors. Since I’m off to the ocean in a few weeks, I might have to take along one of the these to do.
Here’s a link if you’d like to add it to your library.
Flora Botanica Barbara Brackman
Kansas City Star Books; $24.95
The Spencer Museum of Art at The University of Kansas maintains an extensive collection of art, including about 180 quilts. In 2008 Barbara Brackman curated the exhibit Quilts: Flora Botanica. This book showcases the 27 quilts in that exhibit and examines the source and symbolism of each. The exhibit also included reproductions of quilts made by the Kaw Valley Quilters’ Guild. The book includes directions for making five of those quilts.
Are you looking for a whimsical quilt to make for the child in your life? Cynthia Tomaszewski offers patterns for seven pieced and/or appliqued quilts. The bright quilts with their fun motifs will delight you. I loved the mermaids swimming amidst the seaweed and the rabbit popping out of a top hat surrounded by stars. Let’s Pretend includes basic quiltmaking instructions and an introduction to appliqué as well as tips for fine hand appliqué.
If you’d like to add this book to you quilt library, here’s a link.
When Gayle Bong began quilting 25 years ago, she cut triangles from strip sets, resulting in pairs of triangles sewn together on the long edge. She called the technique “Twin Peaks” and has continued to explore the technique ever since. This book outlines this quick, efficient method and goes on to put it to use in 13 projects.
Digital Essentials
Gloria Hansen
Electric Quilt; $29.95
Gloria Hansen is well-known to readers of The Professional Quilter as the author of our extremely popular Technology Forum columns. The expertise we’ve enjoyed for so many years is now available to quilters everywhere. Subtitled “the quilt maker’s must-have guide to images, files, and more,” Digital Essentials is just that – a must-have. Gloria covers everything from the basics of understanding resolution to removing the background from a quilt so you can create a clean show entry and so much more. This book should be your first stop when you are trying to work with any of your quilt images. It will save you much time and frustration. And, because you’ll want to keep the book open for easy reference, consider taking it to the print shop to be spiral bound.
If you’d like to add this book to our library, here’s a link to purchase it through Amazon.
If you missed it, we had a teleclass with Gloria where she discussed many aspects of working with digital files. Here are the details on the audio from the class.
“Create Your Own Hand-Printed Cloth”
Rayna Gillman
C&T Publishing; $27.95
If your New Year’s resolution includes expanding your quilting or fiber tool box, then this book will do the trick. Rayna Gillman takes ordinary objects, such as corrugated cardboard, leftover fencing, yesterday’s newspaper or bubble wrap, and shows you how to create your own fabric using eight different techniques. Techniques include stamping, gelatin plate printing, soy wax batik, discharge printing and more. Her directions are easy-to-follow and accompanied by excellent up-close photographs. A wonderful resource for expanding your horizons at surface design.
Here’s an Amazon link if you’d like to add this book to your library.
“The Tale of Alice’s Quilt”
Jennifer Blomgren
Martingale & Co.
$14.95
If you are looking for a book for the young person in your life, this is a good choice. It follows the story of Alice June, who receives the blocks made by her aunt Alice Patricia. The blocks, each an appliquéd butterfly, provide the thread for the younger Alice to discover more about her family and how a love of quilting connects generations. The book includes directions to make the butterfly quilt. Here’s a link to Amazon for the book.
The “Lost Quilt Masterpieces”
Barbara Brackman
Kansas City Star Quilts; $14.95
Isn’t choosing a new calendar for the new year fun? I always pick up the AQS Quilt Engagement Calendar to use as the travel log in my car. But I like to find one to hang in the kitchen. Once I found The “Lost Quilt Masterpieces,” the choice was easy.
Subtitled A Silly Calendar for 2009-2010, this calendar showcases Barbara Brackman’s clever sense of humor. Each month features an undiscovered masterpiece, including “Long Arm Quilting at the Folies-Bergére” by Edouard Manet, “Double Wedding Ring” by Jan Van Eyck and “A Sunday Afternoon on the Old Quilts” by Georges Seurat. Each month’s calendar page does give homage to the actual painting. This calendar will amuse me each month, and I’m looking forward to using it.
And if you are like me, you’ll need an engagement calendar, too. The Quilt Art 2009 Engagement Calendar from AQS lives in my car where I use it to track my mileage. It’s great for this purpose and I can be inspired by prize winning quilts at all the traffic lights. Here’s a link to Amazon to this calendar.
Mother Earth’s ABC
Sieglinde Schoen Smith
Breckling Press; $15.95
Fans of the award-winning quilt “Mother Earth and Her Children” will love this charming tale of the coming of spring and the transformation of a seedling into a zinnia. The book includes instructions for transferring each letter onto your own sewing project as well as the embroidery instructions. A wonderful gift for the holidays.
I’m still on a cloud after our teleclass on Tuesday evening. One of our listeners asked, “How do I type a standing ovation?” Thanks, Allison! It was our first of what I hope is a long series of teleclasses geared to serious or business quilters. Our first class featured a Q&A format with Gloria Hansen. Gloria’s latest book, Digital Essentials: The Quilt Maker’s Must-Have Guide to Images, Files and More, was just published in late September. The book is a wealth of valuable information and she shared lots of information on the importance of resolution, printing on fabric, working with images for slide shows, copyright protection of your images on the Web and more. I think our conversation is a great compliment to her book. We taped the conversation and it will be available next week as either an audio download or a physical CD. I’ll also have copies in Houston. And, thanks to everyone who stuck with us despite the technical difficulties. I know you’ll agree it was definitely worth it. And, thanks to Gloria for helping us kick off the series.
If your New Year’s resolution includes expanding your quilting or fiber tool box, then this book will do the trick. Rayna Gillman takes ordinary objects, such as corrugated cardboard, leftover fencing, yesterday’s newspaper or bubble wrap, and shows you how to create your own fabric using eight different techniques. Techniques include stamping, gelatin plate printing, soy wax batik, discharge printing and more. Her directions are easy-to-follow and accompanied by excellent up-close photographs. A wonderful resource for expanding your horizons at surface design.
