Monday, 27 January 2003

Since becoming obsessed, I have bought many books about quilting in the last couple of months. Here's a rundown and brief impressions so far.

• America's Glorious Quilts -- This is a big coffee table book that I found on the discount table at a local Borders. It's got tons of pictures of both old and modern quilts with essays beginning each section and commentary on each quilt. Very inspiring to browse through.
• The Quilter's Ultimate Visual Guide -- Recommended by Dana to me, this book uses great graphics and illustrations to demonstrate various principles. Very useful.
• Quilter's Complete Guide -- A good resource, lots of useful tips along with a fair amount of detail and good illustrations.
• Quilts! Quilts! Quilts! -- I was pretty disappointed in this one, given that it tends to get rave reviews. There are several interesting quilts, and multiple dimension choices are given for each, but the patterns, if you can call them that, are way too abbreviated for a beginner. Nonetheless, there is some useful stuff in here.
• 101 Fabulous Rotary-Cut Quilts -- Great resource. Lots of neat patterns to choose from and all the instructions are centered around rotary cutting. I highly recommend this one. There are at least 3 designs (on first flip-through) that intrigue me enough I may want to try a variation. (And I think I'm the type who's going to want to do mostly original designs.)
• Quilting for Dummies -- I thought this one was kind of uneven. I don't think it's an optimal beginner's book, but there are some useful things in here.

Hi. Laurel K recommended your weblog to me -- I've just taken up quilting. I've been glomming all the books I can find, and I was also disappointed in QUILTS! You might like Harriet Hargrave & Sharyn Craig's ART OF CLASSIC QUILTMAKING. It was detailed and thorough and not at all lightweight.

      Quilty comment by Daedala on 11 February 2003

Oo. That one looks good, too. I have added it to my wishlist.

      Quilty comment by Uncorked on 11 February 2003

I've been designing many quilts in EQ, but I can't share all of them since some may turn into gifts. However, there is one that if I ever make it, it will be for myself. I think it's too ... odd ... for anyone but me to appreciate it. Heh. I call it Irregular River. It's a big quilt, designed to be roughly 100 inches by 100 inches. I don't think I'll get to it this year, but maybe next year.

EQ (electronic quilting?) looks like interesting special-purpose software! can you import texture maps to color the blocks?

      Quilty comment by Anita Rowland on 27 January 2003

EQ is Electric Quilt, a software package for quilt design. I think I mentioned it in an earlier entry and it's linked on the sidebar. It comes pre-loaded with about 3000 fabrics and you can buy additional cds to have even more fabrics to choose from when designing. (They are scans of actual fabric lines.) It's very slick software; I'm impressed so far. You can also scan your own fabrics if it doesn't happen to have the one you want to use, although I haven't tried that yet.

      Quilty comment by Uncorked on 27 January 2003

I guess I'm odd, too. I _really_ like that one.

      Quilty comment by Daedala on 11 February 2003

Daedala --

Thanks! I may have to resort to posting designs for a little while, because I haven't had much time for actual sewing in the last couple of weeks, alas.

      Quilty comment by Uncorked on 11 February 2003

Sewing? What's that?

Hopefully, I'll at least get to cutting strips this weekend....

      Quilty comment by Daedala on 15 February 2003

I like it too. Very vibrant. I've just started playing wth EQ5. I never thought to put the binding on a quilt design using EQ. Is it just another border?

I'm with Daedala, I hardly know what sewing is, I'm still stuck in the cutting out phase on m any projects and I've been distracted with blogging(instead of working on my projects).
Love your site by the way, I find it very inspiring.

      Quilty comment by Wendy Darby on 30 July 2004

Yes, in EQ5 I just create a quarter-inch border if I want to put the binding in. Lately though, I've been binding in the same color as the outermost border, so I haven't been doing that as much.

Thanks for the feedback, btw! Haven't had much time to quilt lately, unfortunately, but am hoping to do some this weekend, actually.

      Quilty comment by Lyn on 31 July 2004