Book Recommendations
Here are some of my favorite books - the books I recommend to friends and students - along with descriptions about why I think they're great, and links to let you add them to your library!Books for Quilters
Piecing Books
Cutting Curves from Straight Pieces
Most books and techniques for piecing curves are formal, complicated, and basically not much fun. This book is different! Taking a "freehand" approach to cutting and piecing curves leads to fun, dynamic quilts that are not technically challenging.
This technique is fast enough that I recommend it to students learning to "stitch-in-the-ditch" using a longarm for their practice quilts.
The approach has its limitations, but if you want to try a fun, carefree method that adds curves to your repertoire, this is the book!
Quilting Books
Quilting Makes the Quilt
What makes this classic different from all the other books available about quilting is that the author set out to show how different choices of quilting profoundly affect the finished appearance of the quilt.
To do this, she picked 12 traditional quilt patterns, and made 5 copies of each. She then quilted each one differently. This book shows the results of her Herculean effort.
One of the questions I'm asked most often is "how do you decide what to quilt?" This is the book I recommend - it doesn't provide an easy answer, but does show possibilities and deepen the awareness of most quilters.
LongArm Books