Customer Reviews

The Quilt: A History and Celebration of an American Art Form

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just got the book yesterday, and sat with it in my lap all evening. It's big - coffee table size - and heavy. The pages are thick, and it just feels good to turn them. The pictures and text are wonderful, the font is clear and easy to read. In particular, the organization of the book doesn't try to be all-inclusive. It organizes the information and stories along the reasons that people quilt. Many of the pictured quilts have a story about the maker. You can read a few pages and move on. I won't get tired of this any time soon.

The bibliography, web links and quilting organization directory in the back of the book is rich and diverse. It's a great starting place for just about any online searching you'd want to do.

this book bills itself as 'the most comprehensive history of american quilts ever published.'

hardly. although it does a better job of covering the 1920s-1950s than most quilt books, other eras are not all that well done. and there are several quilts that are beautiful, unusual, and inspiring that i have not seen in other books.

the back cover boasts that there are more than 200 color photos quilts. there may be, but there are sections of this 330+ page book where page and page after page after page is completely free of any photo or illustration, never mind quilt photos. ordinary quilts are given full page space, while several impressive quilts have less than half a page. _the american quilt_, by roderick kiracofe, has a third fewer pages and claims 250 photos of quilts. it's also much better written. and that's only one example of other, better, books that address quilt history.

a history should be chronological. this is not. a history should be accurate--there are glaring mistakes and unbelievable statements (marie antoinette is 'infamous.' what?? notorious, yes, libelled and slandered, provably--but 'infamous'? she wasn't eva braun. oh, and why is she mentioned?) nearly an entire page is devoted to mary, queen of scots, and an example of her needlework is included. why? it has absolutely nothing to do with quilts. one caption states that quilters in early- to mid-20th century america had to rely on mail order for their fabric. is the author totally ignorant? until the decline of home sewing, about the mid-70s, many department stores had yardage counters, there were shops devoted to yard goods, dry goods stores carried bolts of fabric. shops specializing in quilting alone may be a recent phenomenon, but fabric stores have existed for more than a century. (1/4/08: i was skimming through this book again, and, by chance, read in the text more accurate information about fabric availability--the text was not near the caption that annoyed me. sloppy production, but probably not the author's fault.)

the text seems to be aimed at the junior high school level. the grammar is appalling. to correct one caption: a word does not derive from something. a word is derived from something. just because the advertising profession thinks the passive voice is not exciting enough to manipulate consumers is no reason to degrade the language.

space is wasted in essays of varying degree of interest. one person's viewpoint of events can be interesting, but not necessarily accurate.

still, in all this dross there are a few items of interest. the stories of past quilters are moving, some even heartbreaking. the photos of people are interesting (the share croppers [sic] who put on their silk stockings for the photographer [nylon wasn't yet used then]).

do i like it? no, it makes me angry that such a little is priced at such a lot. am i going to return it? after several days' consideration, i decided to keep it--because i think it would be unethical to photocopy the quilts i like and then return the book.

do i recommned it? only to quilters who are already familiar with the better histories of quilts and quilting. and then i'd suggest waiting until they can buy it used.

I just got my copy of this book and am really enjoying it. It's larger than I thought it would be and very easy on the eyes. It's full of quilt photos and interesting stories. I like that it shows a lot of quilts I haven't seen before. I'm tired of quilt books that just recycle the same quilt pictures I've seen in other books.

But what I really like are the stories. I just get drawn into who made these quilts and why. Where did the blocks come from, how did they get around the country? There are quilt photos from all over America and stories about the blocks, fabrics, and quilters who made them. It's not perfect (I found a typo), but I am having a ball reading it. I especially like the way it handles a couple of controversial quilt topics like the Underground Railroad quilts and "swastika" quilts. I've read other quilt history books, but this one takes a different slant.

I thought this would be a coffee-table book that I would flip through once in a while, but I'm actually reading it. I've even bookmarked a couple stories for my next quilt guild meeting.

This huge book had much less photos than other books. I would have prefered to see more quilts portrayed. I did read it quite a few months after receiving it and it was very interesting. It is lovely to browse through, and beautiful in presentation.

this book was for a friend who is an avid quilter and owns a library of quilting book. She was very please to receive A HISTORY AND CELEBRATION OF AN AMERICAN ART FORM. She said she enjoyed reading the book and realized there were still a lot she did not know about quilting and its history and this book helped her fill that gap.
thank you amazon for helping me with a hard to find book that brought a lot a job to a dear friend

My wife ordered two of these books for Christmas gifts. Amazon stated that they were "new". When they came, one was wrapped in plastic, in new condition. The other was not in plastic, was dirty, sun damage on the cover and looked bad. We returned the "bad" one, and I told the person I talked to that we wanted another on wrapped in plastic. When the replacement came, it was not in plastic, was also dirty, but not as bad as the first one. My wife tried to clean off the cover, but ended up taking the cover from her personal book and putting it on the one from Amazon. Considering we paid more to Amazon for "new" books, we are disappointed in what we received. On the positive side, the process to return the book to Amazon was easy and smooth.
The book itself is a great present for anyone who quilts. It is very comprehensive and has beautiful pictures.

I truly love this book, it's so informative and presents it's self beautifully as a coffee table book. Anyone interested in the history of quilts and the many different designs will surely enjoy this book.

I read this review before deciding not to get the book, but then got it as a gift. After reading 3/4 of it, I am bored with its stories and simplistic history. The author spends to long reviewing the history of the eras in general before discussing quilting. Her tone is entirely too superlative with minimal attempt at thoughtful, critical discussion. This is a good book if one knows little about history and even less about quilting. It will be more valuable for research in twenty years for the content describing what quilting activities - and here she is quite comprehensive - are going on currently.

I purchased this for a gift for a friend, but had to look through it when it arrived. It has beautiful photos of a wide variety of American quilts along with stories to accompany them. It is a coffee table book to pick up and browse through at leisure and there is always something new to see. My friend loves her gift.

I am not a quilter, but my mother is, so I bought this book as a present for her. But I'm reading it before I give it to her, and find it really interesting! I didn't know much about quilting, but have always loved history. This book really grabs you with its great pictures and engrossing personal stories.

Another plus is its easy-to-read text, which will be appreciated by mom, I'm sure (when I'm done reading it, of course). I'm really enjoying reading this, even as a relative outsider to the quilting world.