It's Wednesday, and I'm in China! But I've still got a neat new book to share with you today - written by my friend Jan Ochterbeck of The Colorful Fabricoholic!
Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I will tell you that Jan sent me a copy of her book and asked me to review it. But I will also remind you that I promised to tell you exactly what I think of the books I review, whether I got it for free or not.
This book is so cool! Jan says in the introduction that "the premise of this book is that you can easily make a variety of simple yet versatile quilt blocks by making a parent block, slicing and dicing it, shuffling the parts, and resembling them...". Once I read over her technique, I was amazed at the variety of quilts she designed after starting with the "block mama" and performing a little magic with a rotary cutter.
For example, this quilt is called "Labyrinth". It is made taking one basic block, the "block mama", and doing a little slice and dice. Then the parts are re-arranged into this cool design!
And this quilt, called "Zen Garden" is another variation, using the same "block mama" and a slightly different arrangement.
And I absolutely love this one - Heat Wave -
shown in four different color ways!
This one is definitely going on my bucket list!
It is amazing what you can do with a little slicing, dicing and re-arranging - creating beautiful quilts that look complicated, but are really very simple. If you like to make quilts but don't have a lot of time, this book is a great investment. It is available from the American Quilter's Society or from Amazon.
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And that's what's on my bookshelf this week! Have you taken a look at yours lately?
Hugs!
Sarah
Thanks for reviewing Jan's book. I picked up my copy at the AQS Chattanooga show where it was first released. Can't wait to give it a try.
ReplyDeleteOK - you instigator. I ordered - will make a great book for our quilt classes.
ReplyDeleteLooks interesting...always loved making Stack 'n Whack and Stack the Deck (sounds like the same method here) quilts!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Sarah, for reviewing my book! I'm so glad you like it and find the "block mama" method intriguing. Thanks especially for showing how the patterns are illustrated in different fabrics for completely different looks - so versatile.
ReplyDeleteIf you like the concept of disappearing nine patch, disappearing four patch, etc. then the block mama technique is definitely for you.
Thanks for reviewing Cut and Shuffle Quilts! ~ Jan O
I have played with doing that with blocks on my own - so much fun and what a great surprise to come up with a totally new, complicated-looking block!! Now I need to hunt this book down!!
ReplyDelete