Occasionally I am contacted by C&T Publishing with an opportunity to review a book, and in return I offer to write a blog post with my honest reactions and thoughts. Today, I am sharing about Free-Motion Designs for Allover Patterns (affiliate link). The book includes over 75 designs from Natalia Bonner, Christina Cameli, Jenny Carr Kinney, Laura Lee Fritz, Cheryl Malkowski, Bethany Pease, Sheila Sinclair Snyder, and Angela Walters.
I was particularly interested in reviewing this book for my blog because I know many of those who linked up for the 2018 Planning Party listed improving or practicing free-motion quilting as a goal for the year. The book description reads:
Want inspiration for your free-motion quilting? Now you have the perfect tool! This spiral-bound book is full of designs―JUST designs―and will lay flat on your work surface or your quilt to keep your hands on the quilt and that needle moving! The second in a new series, this visual guide is filled with over 75 continuous-line designs from your favorite designers to get you stitching. Perfect for domestic and longarm machines.
The book does not provide any instructions for free-motion quilting; it really is JUST designs. There is no indication or suggestion on where to start or how to travel to create the motifs. However, if you are no longer a free-motion quilting beginner and looking for inspiration to help you when you are feeling like you have been quilting the same motifs over and over, this book overs a lot of visual ideas.
I personally am a big fan of spiral bound books because they can lay so flat and allow you to easier referencing. The designs span between what can be done with a walking foot and designs that are clearly free-motion quilting, from traditional to modern, and simple to elaborate.
Free-Motion Designs for Allover Patterns is available now from Amazon and C&T Publishing (affiliate link).
Sounds like a book I would add to my library.
This one sounds like it might be a book for my future. When I am a bit more comfortable. Hope you are resting your feet after Quilt Con!
I have a plan to do something like that book for designs I know/learned. I have a “bagful” of samples that I think may get sewn into a donation dog crate pad. Seems like this book is a handy addition.
Thanks for the book review 🙂 I’m always looking for visual inspiration, so a book full of designs sounds right up my alley. It’s nice to be able to have it laying beside me to look at if I quilt myself into a corner.
Sounds like one I should buy.
Thanks for the review Yvonne. The book sounds great, I love that it is spiral bound but at this stage of my quilting journey I need more instruction, maybe later. It’s great to read an honest review by a fellow quilter.
Thanks for the review, Yvonne! Good to know that it’s just design ideas and not step by step how to.
That sounds like a helpful book. I am always struggling for ideas and end up doing loops in desperate indecision. Are they grouped, by degree of difficulty, for example?
The spiral binding would be helpful for people with long-arm machines. When practising with my friend’s simply sixteen, she showed me how to ‘trace’ a design with a pointer and my sketch to one side. This would be easier with a book like this that lays flat.