Customer Reviews

Free-Motion Quilting Made Easy: 186 Designs from 8 Simple Shapes (That Patchwork Place)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this book! It is the most helpful and detailed book I've seen on free-motion quilting. As a fairly new quilter, the in-depth instructions and illustrations have really assisted me in my quilting. The step-by-step method illustrated here makes me look like a pro!

This book has lots of great tips on how to get started quilting your own quilts. Reading the section on Free-Motion Quilting Basics you will find tips such as using the right foot (and that doesn't mean the one on the floor!), thread tension, how to secure your starting thread, hand position and quilting gloves. While this only covers a few of the tip, they are good ones to start with.

Ms. Larkin also provides exercises for you to try out your newly learn techniques. We all know that the word here is PRACTISE! By using simply shapes, she shows you how to create intricate patterns that will add that special touch to your quilt top. There are eight basic shapes and once you have those down, the sky is the limit.

Once you have learned the shapes, then you can use the handy chart to find the page that has that combination. This tells you which one to create first and the pages individual designs can be found on which tells you where to start and the direction to sew. There are extra tip boxes throughout the book that are highlighted in soft yellow boxes with dashed lines around it.

There is a section of the book that covers what and where to quilt and has graphics to help explain the techniques. And a section is a gallery of quilts that show the whole quilt and "exploded" sections so you can see more of the detail. The last two pages provide a Troubleshooting chart. If you want to learn to quilt your own quilts with free-motion designs, this would be a great book to use.

Easy to understand set-up and preparation of each block for free-motion design. The many illustrations show how to meld designs as well as arrows to show the path of the needle for the chosen design. There are suggestions on design to use for different shapes as well as areas that might not need quilting. The narrative is detailed and easy to follow.

Of the wide variety of books on free-motion machine quilting that I have read, this is probably the very best. The advice and the exercises are good, but there is still the issue of the exercises being done on relatively small pieces of fabric. It's quite different to try the same thing on a full-size bed quilt. The 'nesting' technique, as opposed to the roll technique, for getting a clear area to quilt on is good, but I found that the 4.5" area that she recommended didn't work for me. Nevertheless, this was worth the time and money, and I did learn from it.

I recently got my copy of free motion quilting made easy and was inspired to begin quilting again. The designs are very beautiful and i cant wait to try them.I have done some very simple no pattern free motion before and with the instruction in this book i feel i will be able to do these more intricate patterns.If you want to do free motion and need some great direction this book is for you.

The author does an excellent job of introducing some new ideas in a very simplistic manner. Great book to get if you are looking for a fresh perspective.

"Free-Motion Quilting Made Easy: 186 designs from 8 simple shapes" by Eva A. Larkin is a Must Have book for machine quilters or anyone interested in learning to machine quilt.

This book is an amazing resource. Not only are you given 186 different continuous line quilt designs, but more importantly Larkin shows you how she took a few basic shapes and combined them to create the designs. These are skills which can be duplicated using any shape you might care to try. It also allows you to resize any of the designs she shows to the exact size you require.

Larkin has included sections on how to set up your quilting area, how to determine stitch length, how to break your quilt up into manageable sized areas to quilt and a trouble shooting guide for several common problems which might be encountered.

This is an excellent resource for anyone who is interested in machine quilting.

Karin Renaud
Author, "Quilts from the Heart"

I had several quilt tops to be finished.....no inspiration. But with Eva's ideas, I finished one and ready to start another! Nice simple ideas, but designs look stunning! What a great book!

This is THE BEST book I've found for learning how to do free-motion quilting. It breaks the process down into workable steps. I read the entire book the same day I received it and immediately started practicing. It is so much fun! My days of straight-line machine quilting are over!

FANTASTIC!!! This is what I always needed to make my quilting adventures more exciting. The book is written with easy to understand instructions for any level of quilting.