Review: 3 Innovative Quilting Books

The author's and students' galleries provide great inspiration, and clearly show how liberating this technique can be. The chapter on hunting fabric, helps you reconsider the way you use color and look at fabric (for example, a scalloped cloud-like fabric makes excellent billowy gills for a fish; plaid can become someone's face).

There's a detailed how-to chapter on the practicalities of fabric collage, effectively a workshop-on-the-page: selecting fabric and pattern preparation; cutting out and assembly; gluing together; creating a background; preparing for machine quilting; selecting quilting thread; freehand machine quilting; and finishing; plus making your own pattern and freehand cutting fabric.

The final chapter provides an overview of how the author creates a larger work (in this case a coral reef), starting the collection of reference material, sketching a design and selecting fabric, moving onto creating the background and filling in the details, then critiquing and finishing off.

If you've ever wanted to play, here's the book that tells you it's okay to do so.

All three are published by C&T Publishing. ISBNs 1-57120-085-1, 1-57120-111-4 and 1-57120-102-5 respectively.

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