Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches

Carole Samples' book is the go-to guide for crazy quilters seeking new stitches and stitch combinations for their quilts.

I had been doing crazy quilting for a few years when I first learned about Carole Samples out of print book. All of my crazy quilting education came from blogs at that time and 3 years into my crazy quilting experience one blog post mentioned this book as having every stitch and stitch combination imaginable within its pages.  I found a copy and was amazed at what I found inside.

This book is very different from other crazy quilting instruction books. It does not have stitch instructions or pretty pictures to get inspired by. What it does have is quite helpful for the intermediate or advanced crazy quilter who is looking to expand her stitch repertoire.  The book shows every stitch on black and white pages by stitch category, ie, single stitch, fan stitch, holbein, comb, alphabet, T, triangle, geometric, cross stitch, stem stitch, star, herringbone, arrowhead, chevron, fern, zig zag, fishbone, satin stitch, blanket, buttonhole, feather, cretan, and chain stitch. The book then shows numerous examples of stitch combinations.  When the title says the book is a "treasury of stitches" it is telling the truth!

If you want to advance in your crazy quilting craft then you need this book to help you see new ways of doing common stitches.  It helps you to be creative in your embroidery on your crazy quilt top.

I would rate this book 10 of of 5 stars! That is how fantastic it is. As I said above, this book is out of print. However, you can still find it on Amazon as well as Ebay.  It is a must have for the crazy quilter.

Kaffe Fassett's Bold Blooms

I have read a few of Kaffe Fassett's books and even had the good fortune to take a 2 day quilt workshop with him 5-10 years ago. I love his fabrics and have used them in several quilts. Bold Blooms was not only eye candy for me but inspiration as well for future quilts that I am dreaming up.  I am counting this book as a selection for the 2018 Creativity Reading Challenge.

The book begins with Kaffe's story as an artist. He moved from California to London in the 1960s and began sketching items he saw in the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as in England's estate homes. Photos of his watercolor sketchbooks are included in the book which I found interesting as I never knew he used that medium. From those sketchbooks he began his design career, initially in knitwear, oil paintings, tapestries and then quilt fabric design. However, all along he was inspired by floral patterns, the larger the better. He is also a colorist, by that I mean he uses color intensely and combines colors in ways that most artists would not.

I have never used large scale prints in a quilt before but Kaffe shows how it is done. He includes cutting and sewing instructions for several quilts.  I am interested in making 3 of them but 2 use both traditional piecing and applique methods.  I am not good with applique so I am hesitant to try to make them.

As I said earlier this book is eye candy for an artist, quilter, etc... There are large scale photographs of his paintings, tapestries and fabrics as well as his muses from the London museums and estate homes. You also see him working in his glorious colors while knitting, painting, doing needlepoint and designing a quilt on a quilt wall. For those of you who do not quilt, we plan our quilts on a flannel fabric design "wall" that is held against a wall in our sewing room that is large enough to hold fabric pieces for the entire quilt.  Here we try out fabric colors to see what works together before actually sewing the pieces together. You can also see what the whole quilt will look like before sewing and if it isn't pleasing to the eye you can make changes.

The colors in the photographs are inspirational on their own. As an artist my heart begins to swoon when I see color used this way and I can see in my mind not only quilts I could make but colored pencil drawings too.  The big question for me is whether I need  to buy this book.  Probably. While I took it out of the public library it really belongs in my home library for future inspiration.

Highly recommended for artists and quilters!