50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars [Paperback]

Carol Doak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2000

Fifty beautiful 12" Star blocks -- one for each U.S. state -- are ready to stitch in a snap with Carol's paper-piecing tips, full-size patterns, and inspiring ideas for original quilts.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Carol Doak's accomplishments include a sizeable collection of popular books--including the bestselling Your First Quilt Book (or it should be!) and Easy Paper-Pieced Miniatures--and an impressive range of beautiful blue-ribbon quilts that have appeared on the covers of every major quilting magazine in the U.S. Her books have sold more than 500,000 copies to date.

Product Details

• Paperback: 76 pages
• Publisher: Martingale & Co Inc (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564772713
• ISBN-13: 978-1564772718
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 0.4 x 10.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #26,924 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #42 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Crafts & Hobbies > Needlecrafts & Textile Crafts > Quilts & Quilting

More About the Author

As a best-selling author, celebrated teacher and lecturer and award-winning quiltmaker, Carol Doak has geatly influenced the art and craft of quiltmaking for more than a decade, both in the U.S. and internationally. Her accomplishments include a sizable collection of popular books - Easy Machine Paper Piecing, Easy Paper-Pieced Keepsake Quilts, Easy Mix & Match Machine Paper Piecing, Show Me How to Paper Piece, Easy Reversible Vests, Easy Paper-Pieced Miniature Quilts, Your First Quilt Book (or it should be!), Easy Stash Quilts, 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars, Easy Paper-Pieced Baby Quilt, 40 Bright and Bold Paper-Pieced Blocks, 300 Paper-Pieced Quilt Blocks, Simply Sensational 9-Patch Stars and her recent release, Mariner's Compass Stars, is receiving rave reviews . Carol also recently released an updated version of her best-selling Easy Reversible Vests, 50 Little Paper-Pieced Blocks and her latest book, Carol Doak's Creative Combinations. With over one million books in print, it is no secret that Carol has raised the popularity of paper piecing, her trademark technique, to heights never before seen in the world of quiltmaking.

Carol's Carol Doak Foundation Paper and Carol Doak's Keepsake Frame Cards are very popular items for paper piecers around the world.

An impressive range of her beautiful blue-ribbon quilts have been featured in several books, such as Great American Quilts 1990 and The Quilt Encyclopedia and on the cover's of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, Quilt World, Quilting Today, Ladies' Circle Patchwork and McCall's Quilting.

Carol's lighthearted approach and ability to teach have earned her high marks and positive comments from workshop participants worldwide and at national shows such as the Houston International Quilt Festival and the American Quilter's Society Show. If you have ever taken a class from Carol, you know that her enthusiasm for quiltmaking is infectious. Carol has a gift of sharing her inspiring ideas with her students in such a positive and unique way. Carol travels to teach extensively through the United States including Alaska and Hawaii and as far away as England and Australia.

In April 1999, Carol was awarded the 8th Honors Award from the Eastcoast Quilters Alliance in recognition of her outstanding influence in the field of quilting. In September 1999, her book, Easy Machine Paper Piecing, was named by Quilter's Newsletter Magazine as one of the 30 most influential books in the past 30 years. She was also nominated as one of 24 All-American Quilters in 2004 and 2005 Professional Quilter of the year.

Carol's history in the quiltmaking is nothing short of remarkable, and the future of quiltmaking will benefit from her generous knowledge, enthusiasm, and most of all from her love of quilts.

Carol lives in New Hampshire, where she claims the cold winters give her plenty of reason to stockpile a fabric stash for insulation purposes!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Warning - lots and lots of pieces February 21, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

The blocks are stunning. The directions are clear. The blocks are very, very time consumming, since they mostly have about 60 + pieces. This was my first paper piecing project and the technique was fun. It does not however produce 100 percent accuracy at first because it takes just as much skill to sew exactly on a line as it does to sew a perfect quarter inch seam. Piecers should know that the authors method of pre-cutting pieces, sewing to a foundation, and then cutting to size, wastes huge amount of fabric since she always gives you a half inch or more to spare on all sides and is very time consuming. After piecing four blocks, I was very pleased with the results but couldn't bring myself to do anymore. I was extremely disappointed that the cd didn't have files to print out of the patterns. The tight binding makes photocopies difficult and I ended up spending a lot of time re-drafting the pattern in Electric Quilt. I understand you can buy some software with the patterns, but didn't think it was worth the extra money.

48 of 49 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Your Stars Will Be Fabulous! July 1, 2000

By Vicky

Format:Paperback

I just finished watching the video CD to 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars and wanted to tell everyone how fabulous it was! It is included in the book and was one of the reasons I purchased the book. I am really excited about getting started on piecing some of the stars and combining parts of different stars to make new stars. The tips Carol shares will make working on them effortless, with the end product looking beautiful and perfect. I have done paper piecing, but will enjoy it so much more now. Carol is a delightful person and a wonderful teacher! The book itself offers step-by-step instructions and the accompanying video CD helps you through the whole process with tips to make piecing accurate. (I will view this video CD over and over again!) Carol specifies what sizes to cut of the fabrics for each block. With Carol's suggestions, she opens up the creativity of your mind as the possibilities are endless. The book is filled with many, many color pictures of the stars, which inspire me as I look at them over and over again. So, I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about beginning quilting or has years of experience. Thanks Carol for sharing your expertise and creativity with us!

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Somewhat disappointing December 16, 2003

By Lucinda Welenc

Format:Paperback

Don't get me wrong -- the designs are GREAT! I plan to incorporate several in my next quilt. But I am MOST disappointed that the CD doesn't include the patterns themselves so that they could be printed out from my own computer. My local quilt shops made such a big deal out of the fact that a CD was included in the high price, I (and they) thought that the CD would be patterns, not an instruction video. Now I find out that to get printable patterns, you have to buy an *additional* CD. Not a good way to do business, Ms. Doak -- it's called "bait and switch".

43 of 48 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Make Stars The Easy Way With Paper Piecing February 5, 2001

By Sharon Darling

Format:Paperback

Here are some excerpts from my review of this book. You can see the complete review on the Quilter's Review website, as well as a review of Quilt-Pro's Foundation Factory software that includes all the patterns from this book.

"If you've ever tried to do stars but had trouble with the points, you may have heard that paper piecing yields perfect stars with perfect points. Now all you have to do is figure out how to paper piece. And of course, find the patterns.

"You're in luck! Carol Doak has compiled a collection of 50 fabulous star patterns, all paper-pieced, and complete with excellent instructions. This diverse collection starts with the basic LeMoyne Star and adds lines, flowers, leaves and background detail....

"Cutting the fabric to fit is one of the things that make paper piecing so frustrating for beginners. To get the fabric piece large enough to fit the pattern, it seems as though you have to waste lots of fabric. With Carol's chart, you can cut the minimum amount of fabric and the pieces still fit....

"If you don't know how to paper piece or would like to find some tips to make it easier, Carol includes complete step-by-step instructions for her method. But the best part of the book is the video CD that is included. You can watch Carol do a Delaware star as she explains each step.

"When I finished watching the video, I wondered how I could have ever thought paper piecing was difficult!"

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Reccommend by the accidental quilter August 6, 2000

By Mary Z. Cox

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Stars are hard--especially the ones that are made from diamonds. Carol Doak uses paper-piece to create beautiful stars in this book as well as provides a CD to explain her techniques. If you want to piece beautiful and accurate stars--this is the book for you. The color plates are vivid, and she includes the paper-piece formats for each star.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, but August 19, 2005

By Marilyn Smith

Format:Paperback

Really nice book, the CD that comes is very informative. The book is laid out nice, the only trouble i had with the book was to get the cd that has the pattern layouts to put on the computer, I had to go to another source listed in the book. It would have been nice to know that an additional CD was needed to use with the book, so the patterns to piece could be printed out on the computer's printer.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars deserves 5 stars! July 13, 2004

By CardBord

Format:Paperback

I love all of my quilt books but this is the one I use the most. The designs are so versatile and cover the entire range from simple to intricate. I learned the paper-piecing technique by watching the CD. I found it much easier to understand the process by watching the video than reading the book. I recently needed a refresher and was so pleased to have the CD to watch again.