Quilting Reference Books (Page 1 of 2)

This book gives some very useful insights into how to create practical sewing areas in all sorts of spaces. It helped me establish my original sewing room in a very small space.

This is a coffee table book if ever there was one. I think the title is a command rather than a statement! It presents all sorts of ideas for displaying quilts around your home. There are so many quilts of a grand scale in this book, it makes you go weak in the knees. It covers every room in the house, including bathrooms and laundries. It also has sewing room set ups and was consulted when I established the new sewing room in our new house.

This book taught me about the intricacies of which colors and fabrics work together and why.

This book is a series of 22 colour charts, showing progression in patches and backgrounds in yellows, greens, blues etc. For example, you can see how a predominant yellow patch works with changes in the minor patches to purple, black with gold and also three different backgrounds, such as light yellow, yellow with a gold pattern and a light green.

This book is all about Jinny's own colour system. She creates a master palette before commencing a project. Her system has become an industry standard. It is an excellent tool for learning to blend colours together in the first place and then for controlling changes to your scheme during the project.

This book shows you how to create your own spiral Celtic designs.

This interesting book is based on Remme' translation of Celtic designs into quilts using simple pieced, repetitive, geometric blocks and lively colours. It is full of block designs — a must if you are into Celtic quilts.

This book is still on my to read list. I bought it because it was the only one around at the time and I still have not made my first Crazy Quilt! It has lots of examples and lots of technique information.

This book is a magic aid for unravelling the mysteries of creating space, depth, perspective and motion in your quilts. It also shows how to create striking optical illusions.

This book has impressive and arresting photographs of what can be done with straight lines and colour. It makes a good companion for the Optical Illusions book above. It contains a number of patterns and describes the effects of moving them around, such as rotating them. Excellent for inspiring you to get on with the quilt your doing too!

Jinny Beyer's books are always fascinating and if you have been to any of her courses, you will know they reflect her enthusiasm. This book is no exception with oodles of designs in the 4-, 5-, 7- and 9-patch categories, as well as the Mariners Compass and Eight-Pointed Star. (Please see Jinny's Color Confidence for Quilters elsewhere on this page.)

The book contains presentations from 25 quilters in a variety of categories, together with one pattern from each person. It contains some very interesting designs. I have not checked recently to see if there are more books in this series — I have too many books now!

This book is worth the purchase just for the pattern on the cover (we will add a picture of the cover as soon as we can). It tells you everything you need to know about the Mariner's Compass block. Lots of photos and lots of patterns. My husband bought it because the patterns are so impressive.

This is everything you need to know about rotary cutting. I keep saying I am going to read this book next, because it will make things quicker and easier, but you know how it goes.

This book contains photographs only plus a biography on each designer. Needless to say, the designs are stunning.

This is the first of two books on the subject by the same author and it is the first book on using this method. It is all about drawing a curve through a block of fabric and then looking at the different ways to assemble them to obtain a large variety of patterns but nevertheless retaining the underlying perfection of the geometry of the original curve. It includes patterns for 70 blocks, 36 borders and 13 diagramed quilts. I made one of the quilts from this book (a photo will appear in The Quiltwise Gallery) — it is a stylised bunch of flowers, complete with a separate butterfly and some falling leaves. It is all built out of the one two-patch block. Elegant but very eye catching.

This is the second book in the Curved Two Patch Designs series — see above.

I bought this book for the good ideas — it is quite old, but the ideas do not change.

I bought this book when I was attending a watercolor course. The colour effects are absolutely fabulous. The first watercolor I made will be included in The Quiltwise Gallery. When you look at this book it makes you realise that watercolours should never be dropped from the quilting repertoire. There is a magical quality about them, but oh, so much work! But people never fail to be impressed by ones of the calibre of what is in this book.

This book is not for the feint-hearted! The impacts of the quilts are stunning in every sense. The descriptions for making the patterns are very detailed — and they need to be. But the results are out of this world. If you can only afford one luxury quilt book, this might be the one. You may never look at a pattern in quite the same way again. Some of the quilts have multiple different kaleidoscopes on them to compound the visual impact even more, if that is possible. (Have a close look at the cover by clicking on the picture and then click on Amazon's picture to see an enlarged photo. In my opinion, this is the least impressive of the photos in the book.) Truly amazing and breathtaking.

Another fascinating Jinny Beyer book. I bought this at her workshop on the technique. I must confess though to not having used it on a quilt — yet. It certainly complements the course and tells you what you need to know (but there is nothing like being there!).

This book is very creative. It presents dazzling 3D effects never before seen in quilting. It contains step by step instructions, diagrams and templates. I used it for a Challenge Block that won Second Prize at our local quilt show (determined by open voting by the public attending the exhibition).

Primarily picture content with parallel Japanese and English.

This book is mainly patterns. Designs are all flower themes such as, Evergreen Magnolia, Shamrock, Lilly of The Valley.

Huge amounts of colour and variety plus patterns plus techniques. It is all here. It is categorised by the seasons and it provides inspiration by the page.

Who else but the Japanese quilters would think of putting those two words together in association with quilting? As you might expect, the quilts almost look like a mess! If you are looking for ideas of how to make a quilt that looks like you dumped your off-cuts basket on the floor, this is it. But come to think of it, if it is only a matter of dumping your off-cuts on the floor ...

All photos. And what photos!

This book contains 30 3D designs built using Origami methods. The patterns are provided. The photos don't do justice to the 3D effects, but the quilts are just unbelievably beautiful.