Books I can’t be
Without:
Anyway,
I began my patchwork life in 1985 (after my Malaysian fumbling) more
successfully by learning how to hand piece – the traditional way. This book was recommended to me and I would
certainly endorse it as a fantastic resource for beginners.
Marjorie has provided very clear diagrams and instructions that are easy to read helping to understand exactly what the process is. She provides tips that beginners need to know explaining clearly how NOT to go wrong at any step. This is the book I would recommend to any beginner who wants to successfully hand piece as the diagrams and instructions are kept simple and a cinch to follow.
After
a while, beginner’s samplers began to pale, so Ruby McKim’s book provided me with a
source of patterns for whole quilts.
What was so enchanting about this resource was not only its great
selection of patterns for hand piecing (most fairly easy) but the snippets of
interesting history about the craft. You
begin to get a sense of how life must have been for early Americans and begin
to see where the names of many of the blocks originated. (It wasn’t until many years later - 2009-2010
- as we toured some of Virginia’s historic battlefield sites and visited the
Virginia Quilt Museum that even more bells began to ring in my brain!). I really loved the vintage "cred" of this book.
Before
I finish with 1999, I want to list my five favourite reference books. Over the years, I’ve amassed a few but only a
handful stand out above the rest. So here
you have my choice if I was to pack up and move to a desert island (or in
reality, live for half a year on a sailboat!):
In
the 80’s patchworking had taken off but we, in Australia (certainly country
Victoria) didn’t have a lot of choice, particularly in books. Generally they were imported, nearly always
American, and somehow we became programmed to think in their systems, eg
measurement, style, judging, choice of colours, etc. I think we still do to some extent but that’s
another discussion point for another day.
So here's the first two:
Patchwork
Possibilities
Marjorie
Puckett, 1981, Orange Patchwork Publishers, California Marjorie has provided very clear diagrams and instructions that are easy to read helping to understand exactly what the process is. She provides tips that beginners need to know explaining clearly how NOT to go wrong at any step. This is the book I would recommend to any beginner who wants to successfully hand piece as the diagrams and instructions are kept simple and a cinch to follow.
101 Patchwork Patterns
Ruby McKim, 1962, Dover Publications, New York
All
of Ruby McKim’s patterns are beautifully drawn out (for hand piecing), so who could stop at one? And the templates are always spot on measurement-wise. I particularly liked her suggestions for
colours, especially those that had been traditionally used. This makes you
reconsider your colour choices and to see different options. A bit of a visual shake-up if you like of
your “reference framework”! I began to
see how you could add a bit more zing to a quilt by marrying pattern to fabric
to tell a story.
