Thursday, December 13, 2018

Creating Art Quilts with Panels


I normally do my book reviews on the High Road Reader blog, but since I have to post every day this month, I am going to do it here.  My latest book is one I got from Net Galley, but I am going to give you my honest opinion.



It's called Creating Art Quilts with Panels: Easy Thread Painting and Embellishing Techniques to Create Your Own Colorful Piece of Art From Panels by Joyce Hughes. It is published by Fox Chapel Publishing. 

This book starts with a super idea. Instead of piecing or appliquéing your quilts, why not start with a panel that is already printed?  You can change up the panel by adding applique or cropping it so you like it, but the quilt top won't take much time to get ready. It is a great idea for people who need a quilt in a hurry or really like the quilting part.

The next step is to sandwich and add a base layer of quilting to secure the layers and keep everything flat.  

Then the fun begins.  You can add thread painting using different colors of thread to add  dimension and shadows and highlights. Followup with a variety of other techniques such as trapunto, use of an overlay, three-D effects, bobbin work, couching, and embellishments.  

The second part of the book takes you through a variety of projects where she shows you how she embellished it, so you can get a feel for how decisions are made about how to use each technique. 

I had thought of this idea before but wasn't quite sure how to accomplish it, and I think this book really helped push me forward in that.  The book is not for beginners, as you do have to have some basic knowledge about how to do free motion quilting, thread painting, etc., although just confidence may be able to take you through it.  There is a lot of repetition and some of the concepts get explained very quickly so the pacing of the book was difficult for me, but overall, I learned a lot. I am giving this book four stars. 

1 comment:

Nancy in NV-wheres the dude at blogspot said...

Hey Shasta I never thought of this before. I have a couple of Christmas panels I might have to try this on.