Quiltmaking by Hand: Simple Stitches, Exquisite Quilts
One of the most thorough books on hand quilting I have ever read, "Quiltmaking by Hand" covers just about everything you might need to know. The first chapter covers several basic items such as selecting fabric, dealing with shrinkage, items in a typical quilter's basket, threads, batting, rulers, markers, scissors, needles, pins, thimbles, and the quilting hoop.
Chapter 2 is basically a primer on pattern drafting. It details the use of an underlying grid to create the pattern and then creating a larger grid of those squares. Unlike many other books, this one takes advantage of modern technology and even covers drafting the grids on a computer if you are so inclined. This is a very important part of designing your own quilt and is often not covered in such detail in other books. Jinny Beyer does a very thorough job of teaching this discipline and has produced the best coverage I have seen.
Chapters 3 and 4 cover the details of starting the sewing including cutting the fabric, working with the grain and assembling the pieces, sewing the running stitch, seams, developing a rhythmic sewing technique, joining four pieces, joining two stitched pieces to a third, and beginning a quilt.
Chapters 5 and 6 cover sewing bias edges, unmatched angles, joining multiple points, working with curves, and sewing irregular shapes.
Chapters 7 and 8 cover working with border prints, creating borders, design and measuring borders.
Chapter 9 covers quilting techniques such as all-over quilting, outline quilting, quilting in the ditch, following fabric designs, and quilting unpieced spaces. It also includes decorative background quilting such as stippling.
The last section contains several patterns and complete construction information. These patterns are both traditional and non-traditional, but all are beautiful.
"Quilting by Hand" is a very highly recommended book that contains the most complete instructions I have seen in any book. If you are new to quilting you can learn everything you need to know to do hand quilting. If you are not new you are still sure to find many tips to learn how to create new and beautiful designs and add fancy quilting techniques to your work.
Author: Jinny Beyer
Publisher: Breckling Press
283 Michigan Street
Elmhurst, IL 60126
Copyright: 2004
ISBN: 097212182X
Pages: 258 plus index