M. Joan Lintault Connecting Quilts, Art & Textiles

If you like her work you are going to love looking through this book. The book is rich in detail and explanations. It's the kind of book that when you are feeling like the muse hasn't been to your studio for a loooooooooooooong time, this book might get you excited to try something different. Her discussions about what had impacts on her art are inspiring. It reminded me to keep looking around my daily existence, keep that camera with me and allow myself time to connect the dots of what I might be seeing and how it might influence my own art work. If you want to check out her website, www.mjlintault.com She also has a blog devoted to indigo dyeing a, natural dyes and resist techniques, indigodye.blogspot.com

Contemporary Quilting

If you are thinking it's time to experiment with an art quilt this might be the book that helps you climb out of that box. It's full of techniques and photos of quilts by a number of award winning quilters. Cindy Walter and Stevii Graves have pulled together an interesting book with projects that are doable. There are 12 different projects, with different techniques that will challenge and teach you. Included, in the back of the book are photos of some of the award winning quilts by the different contributing quilters. If you haven't been to a major quilt show and had a chance to see some of these quilts, here is an opportunity to study them.
ALL THAT SAID, out of a 141 page book, pictures from the gallery start on page 62. That's a lot of photos of artist quilts. At a price of $24.99 I'm not sure I really need a book of mostly photos of award winning quilts.

Creating Texture with Textiles

Creating Texture with Textiles by Linda McGehee is worth buying a cuppa at the bookstore and taking the time to really go through the book. She discusses the different sewing machine feet available and explains the different techniques and ways in which you might use these feet. The detailed color photos are extremely helpful for those of us who might actually have the feet that came with our machines and have never used. She has a in depth chapter on different needles, close up pictures of them and explains the different situations that we should be using all these different sizes of needles. She discusses crinkling of fabric, how to achieve that look, how to dye and bleach fabric and impregnate the fabric with color, stain and tint. Again, the photos for these chapters are extremely helpful in understanding what she is talking about.
There is a chapter on decorative stitching. She discusses threads, bobbin threads, when to use a certain stitch and how to actually and when to use the double needle.
If you are good friends with your sewing machine and you've done a lot of embellishments you might find some of this information old hat. For most people just venturing into this new technique field this is an extremely helpful book. I've only covered a portion of the chapters, there are many more on creating different textures with your fabric.

Fat Quarter Frenzy Two

Well, I do love to pick up fat quarters especially the bundles tied with a bow. They offer so many possibilities at the time. Susan Mark and Daphne Greig have jumped on the band wagon of quilting books to create another book that gives the reader the fabric requirements of a quilt, done with fat quarters. Cutting instructions are given like a cooking recipe which makes it easy for the reader to get all the cutting done correctly before sewing. They offer 12 different patterns from quilts to table runners. Again, I would suggest taking the time to page through this book first and see if there are really any quilt designs that you think you might actually make.

Traditional Quilts with a Twist

Traditional Quilts with a Twist by Maggie Ball is a eye pleasing book filled with basic block construction of eight traditional blocks. She offers some creative combinations and settings of these blocks. What gets me are the prices of quilt books these days. This paperback bound book is $22.99 and frankly that's a lot of money to add it to your bookshelf. I purchased mine with my local sewing store coupon off. I would suggest that you take the time to look at this book carefully and if you see a quilt design that you just absolutely love, fine get the book but unless you have money to burn it just didn't knock my socks off.