Crazy Shortcut Quilts [Paperback]

Marguerita McManus (Author), Sarah Raffuse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 6, 2007

Crazy Shortcut Quilts combines the look of a "Crazy Quilt" with the ease of quilt-as-you-go, so that every single quilt is unique and yet very easily made!

The quilt as you go process uses the decorative stitches of the sewing machine to do the quilting.  There's no need to learn free motion quilting when your sewing machine can do all the quilting for you, using beautiful threads and decorative stitches!

From beginners to experts, all quilters will love the opportunity to have a finished quilt in just hours, using small, manageable pieces of fabrics that are joined in a unique and soft manner.

The book contains solid advice about fabric selection to coordinate your quilts with your home décor, and provides time estimates for finishing each quilt.

Learn how to make a gorgeous, reversible, quilt using fabrics that enhance your decor, quilted with all the beautiful stitches on your sewing machine.

Most quilt books teach you how to make just a quilt top, and offer no fabric selection advice.

Crazy Shortcut Quilts approaches quilting from a "new rules" point of view, teaching you about fabrics, cutting, a new way of creating a "crazy block", and unique quilting tips.  The sashing method looks tailored and smooth, and yet is simple and easy!

Experience the joy of making your first completely finished quilt in a very short time, and the satisfaction of finally having a use for all the gorgeous decorative stitches that you sewing machine has!

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

Hi, I had so much fun writing this book with my daughter Sarah.  Mking all the quilts for the book brought us a lot of satisfaction and you'll see that we explored the use of lots of color combinations!

Both Sarah and I (Marguerita) blog and post on Facebook and we invite you to visit our website, where we feature photos sent to use of quilts made using the methods in our book.

Contact information for us is on our website and we'd love to hear from you!  Questions?  Email me!  If you've made one of our quilts, I just love to feature it on my blog!

We even have some "new patterns" that add to what's offered in the book on our website - free!

About the Author

Marquerita McManus and Sarah Raffuse are legendary in their field.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Krause Publications (July 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0896895475
• ISBN-13: 978-0896895478
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi, my daughter Sarah Raffuse and I wrote "Crazy Shortcut Quilts" together in 2006. In 2011 I wrote "Sew & Quilt in Comfort" because of all the attention my custom table was receiving and I recently published "Finish (almost) Any Quilt" which teaches how to finish up abandoned quilt projects and how to adapt new quilt projects to a quilt-as-you-go technique that helps you FINISH your quilts your way, easily. No more unfinished tops; no more of being afraid to quilt them! This book guides you through it all :)

I live in Seward, Alaska, USA most of the time and Bullhead City, Arizona, USA for a few months in the winter.

I love making videos of quilting and sewing techniques. You can find my videos at YouTube under user ID CrazyShortcutQuilts

Thanks so much for looking us up and please come on over to our blog for some quilt photos, updates and info about what we are currently working on. www.crazyshortcutquilts.com/margueritas-blog/

Happy Quilting,
Marguerita

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This method is fun and easy., October 7, 2007

By 

Suzanne Benson "Sue" (Anchorage, AK United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Crazy Shortcut Quilts (Paperback)

I have already made two quilts with this method, when I took a class from one of the authors. When you get done, it's already quilted! The authors give good directions on how to cut and sew, and many block ideas to make a variety of quilts, each with clear instructions. It's also a fun way to use pretty threads and all of the embroidery patterns on your machine. And it's perfect for fat quarters. Mind you, this is a shortcut method, so don't expect it to teach you how to do exquisite, hand quilted and embroidered crazy quilts. If you want to do that, you need to check out Judith Montano's books. I'm glad the authors wrote this book, because I needed refreshing on how to do it. But I got more than that; it's full of new ideas!

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alaskan Quilters shares their Secrets, April 1, 2008

By 

Penny D. Haren "Checker newsletter editor" (Maumee, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crazy Shortcut Quilts (Paperback)

The mother/daughter team of Marguerita McManus and Sarah Raffuse have created "Crazy Shortcut Quilts - Quilt as You Go in Half the Time!". But after reading the book, there is much more to it than that! Their techniques can be incorporated into any project - and there are times they should be embraced by every quilter - you just may not know it yet!

Many of us are involved in organizations that are making quilts for kids, babies, soldiers, cancer patients, etc. These are wonderful programs that make us proud to be quilters. But, they also can become expensive. Most of us are quite willing to donate fabric and sew, but few of us have the ability to machine quilt these donations. Paying for the machine quilting has become a problem. Not anymore!

Marguerita and Sarah show you how to piece blocks - quilt them - and THEN sew the quilted blocks together to complete your quilt. Since the quilting follows the seams of the pieced blocks, anyone can do it - no meandering required!

It is the perfect opportunity to use up all of those scraps of batting. And then there is the decorative stitching! Many of us have paid way too much for a sewing machine that had all of the bells and whistles - but don't quite remember what we were planning on doing with all of those stitches! No more! Marguerita and Sarah use these decorative stitches to machine quilt their projects and enhance their quilts. And, as an added bonus, any imperfections are disguised if you stray from the seam line.

The threads can be changed on every seam so you may actually use up THAT stash as well!

Since the blocks are quilted individually - and then sewn together - it is possible for anyone to quilt even a queen sized quilt the very first time! After the initial machine quilting - which is done in manageable sizes - the blocks are sewn together with straight seams. You just roll up the rows and stitch!

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crazy Quilt Shortcuts Fantastic Technique!, February 27, 2008

By 

Fabric Designer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crazy Shortcut Quilts (Paperback)

This book contains a crazy quilting technique that is fast, simple, so easy to follow. The quilt-as-you-go block joining method is one of the most precise I've ever seen. The instructions aren't the least bit complicated so anyone can do this, even first-time quilters. The joining and quilting techniques make it easy for quilters to quilt a whole quilt without the bulkiness of one that is pre-assembled. I'd highly recommend it.