Rose Hughes presents readers with a technique for moving beyond squares and blocks and into creating wonderful landscape quilts. Using her simple Fast-Piece Applique technique and straight-stitch piecing, readers can produce shapes that they might not attempt otherwise.
Dream Landscapes includes step-by-step instructions for the Fast-Piece Applique technique, as well as for couching yarns and how to stitch and bead by machine and by hand. Hughes provides five quilt projects that build upon the basics of her technique, a gallery of her and her students art, and guidance and ideas to add excitement to your quilts. Take a look. --Barbara Delaney, Quilting Arts Magazine, Feb/Mar09
If you've ever dreamed of transforming a landscape into fabric, be it from memory, a sketch, or a photo, Dream Landscapes by Rose Hughes is an absolute must! During her travels with camera in hand, Rose incorporated the beauty she saw in her surroundings with her love of fabric. This book is for all quilters and fabric artists who have a collection of scenic photos special enough to turn into a picturesque quilt.
Rose provides instructions and creative techniques to interpret the shapes, textures, and colors found in nature. By combining simple straight-stitch piecing with machine appliqué, shapes with curves and flowing lines can be created. There are no squares and blocks in this book! By starting with a realistic picture, you choose which details are important and which can be simplified or omitted to create a cleaner, more effective curved design. If you are a visual learner, this book is ideal. Many large, colorful, detailed diagrams and photos make the step-by-step directions easy to follow.
The first half of the book contains helpful lessons on selecting fabric and all the specific materials and tools needed, including a Basic Sewing Kit list. Rose teaches her Fast-Piece Applique method which makes sewing curves, irregular angles, and circles easy. Embellishing Essentials covers a variety of unique applications and provides great ideas for using beads, threads, and decorative stitches. In the second half of the book, each of the four wall hanging projects teaches a different technique, ie., working with large patterns, free-style piecing/stitching, set-ins, paper piecing, hand and machine embellishing, etc. The fun really begins when you use these techniques with your own landscape photos to create a personal fabric scene. Finally, the 32 page gallery is inspiring. It will motivate you to grab your camera, sketchbook, or vacation photos they re going to make great quilts! --Fabric Trends, Spring 2009
Rose Hughes creates wonderful color-drenched landscapes filled with sinuous curves and circles. Since fabric is woven in a grid, it tends to resist attempts to make it curve gracefully, but Rose shows you how to create beautiful curves using her fast-piece applique methods. By stacking the fabrics, sewing the desired curve, cutting away the top selvedge and securing the seam under a couched yarn, even the most extreme curves come out flat and luscious. Rose provides patterns and clear step-by-step instructions for several quilts, as well as a strong section on creating your own designs. Her own work is liberally featured throughout the book, and it's a real treat to see it all in one place. A Student Gallery rounds out the book, providing examples of how others have used this technique to great effect. --Martha Sielman, Studio Art Quilt Associates
