Book Review: The Quilting Arts Book

This is by Patricia Bolton. I am so happy that there is a book about the type of quilting that I do. I so cannot do traditional quilting. I am tired of seeing just those books in the bookstore. Sorry, the review from Amazon (below) lost its formatting. You can read it on Amazon, if you want.

My review of the book on Amazon:
I am relatively new to art quilting. I started working with fabric seriously for about a year now. I have been a mixed media artist for several years. I have gone over to the "other side" now. I spend more time on my sewing machine and beading. I don't do half as much with paper than I used to. I don't use glue as much either. I even sew paper together now! I have been a subscriber to Quilting Arts for the past year or so. I have been a subscriber to Cloth Paper Scissors since its first issue. I cannot tell you how true the other reviews are since I do not have all the QA magazine issues. I can tell you that I really like this book. I cannot do traditional quilting and make up a lot of the stuff I do with fabric as I go along. This book gives me a lot of ideas for future projects. The pictures in this book are fantastic. They are very detailed. I hate art books that do black and white pictures. There are a lot of ideas that you can glean from this book. I like how Linda and Laura Kemshall turn something real into an art quilt. I have seen a lot of articles and blog entries about how some artists keep sketches of what they are going to do and then create a quilt or art piece from that. I don't do that much. My vision does not transfer well onto paper unless it is my finished project. It does not mean that I don't enjoy seeing how the sketch looks as a finished quilt. I love Melanie Testa's playful bear in her quilt. There are plenty of techniques to try in this book. I was happily surprised to see composition being addressed in this book. I am big on composition. Art quilting is a great vehicle for me. I can work with more natural/recycled elements and not think so much about the focal points. Color, texture, and shapes are my focal images in fabric art. I can work more abstractly. A lot of the same design principles for paper collage apply in art quilting. You can do a lot of the same things on fabric as your foundation that you do on paper. Think of sewing with a machine or needle and thread as your glue. Someone remarked about how this book was just for beginners. I think that people who are not traditional quilters but are interested in fabric art/art quilting can get a lot out of this book. There is one section on different ways to assemble an art quilt. There is one section that I really like on Free Motion quilting. There is a three page spread on different free motion techniques to try. I have a felting machine. Beryl Taylor's article on quilting and needlefelting gave me some ideas for a future quilting project.I have Shiva metallic paintstiks but have not used them a lot. This book gave me some ideas to start using them. Some of the techniques in this book are rather foreign to me but they are interesting. I am not sure that I would ever use them but they were very ineresting to look at. The pictures were fab. I will definitely have to try the discharging technique with bleach. Could make for some fantastic backgrounds. Layered printmaking called to me because I love to screen print my fabrics. I have a ton of stencils and stamps that i can use. I layer everything that I do. There is a section on digital quilts. I don't do that much even though I do use Photoshop. There is one article with detailed technique steps. It is called a Study in a Still Life. I will definitely have to try that. I have done it with paper and some of my art quilts but have not done it this way. I am always looking for new ways to do things. There is also a great article called The Art of Abstraction. It is a great way for someone who is not comfortable with abstract to give it a try to be more creative. The end of the book has a very good appendix alled the Art Quilter's Pantry. It explains a lot of terms that fabric artists and quilters use. I liked this book so much that I bought another copy for a friend as a birthday present.