Friday, March 6, 2009

Book Corner - My favorite Quilting Book


"Grandma's Best Full-Size Quilt Blocks. Pieces of the Past for Today's Quilter" by Better Homes and Garden. A very long title for my favorite quilt book.
It splits some of the history of quilting up into 4 chapters 1830-1860, 1860-1890, 1890-1920 and 1920-1950. Chapter 5 is devoted to borders. Each time period looks at what was relevent for then and gives full size blocks (minus seam allowance) to try. The writing is concise and there are loooooots of pictures :)
I've already done a number of the blocks from the book. The pink butterfly I posted about recently is a modified pattern from it.
Once I have finished some of the wall hangings I am working on I plan to re-visit the patterns in the book and sew my way through them :)
My mother-in-law has the same book and she is currently hand sewing a number of the blocks. They look very nice and have a kind of "oldy worldy" feel to them. I prefer to machine my blocks together then hand quilt the tops.
Finding my book again (it was buried in the back of my bedroom closet) has given me the extra incentive I need to finish off a number of wall-hangings that are sitting in a drawer. I'm going to pull them all out, thread baste them, and get all the hand sewing done.
P.S. I think this book works under the assumption that you already have a working knowledge of how to do many of the quilting techniques mentioned.

5 comments:

Micki said...

I will definitely have to get that book. It looks marvelous! I hope that it is readily available. I can't wait to see what you make from the book!
Micki

Carol said...

It should be readily available. Try amazon.com

Micki said...

Forgot to ask...Does this book also have lots of applique and Sun Bonnet Sue? I found this book at Amazon, so I will be getting it.
Micki

Carol said...

It has lots of applique, 1 Sunbonnet girl and 1 sunbonnet boy.

Maggi said...

Thank you for visiting my blog. You have some lovely quilts on here. Sorry you can't grow clematis, they are so lovely and seem to thrive over her.