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Animal Kingdom is the logical extension of a best-selling book of animal blocks. Why, when many quilters have computers, should you have to copy blocks from a book when you can print one out, in a size you choose? With just over 100 great animal blocks from an Australian magpie and Bald eagle to a walrus and zebra, it's an electronic Noah's ark waiting to be turned into a fabric one. There are also six dinosaurs to keep fans happy, plus five trees. 55 of the designs are new; the rest come from Margaret Rolfe's bestselling book A Quilter's Ark.
Each of the blocks can be printed out in different sizes (given in inches); you can't set the size yourself, which would've been ideal. You can't tell what sizes the blocks are available in unless you've opened up a block, nor whether the design can be printed as a reversed block. For example, the duckling comes as 1" and 3", the mouse as a 1.5", 2" and 3", and the duck comes as in 4", 6" and 8". So before you sort out your quilt design, check that the blocks come in the sizes you hope they do. The patterns print out very clearly, with numbers, letters and light and dark rules to guide your construction, plus indications of where embellishment and embroidery is to be placed. You can print out detailed instructions on how to paper piece, which will tell you everything you need to know about this method of piecing if you haven't used it before. Usable on both PCs and Macs, the minimum system requirements given are (for PCs) Intel Pentium Processor or compatible; Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4.0 or 2000, 16MB RAM, CD-ROM drive and 65,000-colour video display card or (for Macs) Mac Power Mac, Mac OS 7.5.3 or later, 16MB RAM and CD-ROM drive. However, I found Animal Kingdom irritatingly slow on a PC with this minimum spec and in the end gave up trying to view or print any of the blocks. On a machine with a better spec is was still slow, but usable. The publisher should definitely review their required spec.
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