Jean Wells from The Stitchin’ Post in Sisters, Oregon is someone I have followed from afar for many many years. I think I was first exposed to her when on a vacation in Oregon several lifetimes ago.
Her style really appeals to me. It’s very freeform and nature-driven. Very organic. Very artsy fartsy but yet her work retains such a lovely quilterly aspect.
Last year I bought her book Intuitive Color and Design and have spent many hours pouring through the pages. Her latest book, Journey to Inspired Art Quilting has been a joy also.
Below is one of my favorites pieces to look at from her book. Check out those colors. Check out those lines. I love that freeform piecing. That’s actually on my list of things to do more of this year. I want to do smaller pieces and more freeform piecing. I think I’m stuck in trying to interpret what I see in life into my quilting and that stops me in my tracks. (Oh, and the fear of sucking at it. As everyone knows – I prefer to be good at something straight out of the gate rather than going through the learning process.)
Anyway, I just hope one day soon I can move past the DREAMING IDEA phase and actually into the WORKING DESIGNING phase.
The second book is by Natalia Bonner called Beginner’s Guide to Free-Motion Quilting.
I probably didn’t need another FMQ book but I’m glad I bought it. She goes through the basics in a very nice manner – giving her opinions on what works for her and things you can try. She gives good direction on the designs, which although many of them are simple, have just enough added character that they don’t really look like BEGINNER patterns. Example? She combines swirls with other patterns like daisies or poppies and it gives the pattern an entire ‘doodle-esc’ look (which I love!).
One of the other pluses of this book is her section on working with borders and sashing. And not only using feathers in your borders but things like swirls, ovals and flowers. There is a ton more that draws me and makes me think ‘I can do this’; her pebbling work, her outline work, her line work. It’s all there.
The book includes 6 projects – all of which I would probably make if I hadn’t made a vow to not follow other people’s patterns. I really like the one called Round and Round. Does anyone want to make it for me? It reminds me of a drunkards path design only in an orderly, organized manner. Maybe like a drunk in a labyrinth? ok – that made me laugh…laugh out loud even! I mean really……do you know any orderly, organized DRUNKS? :)
My opinion? This is a good book. I’ll use it frequently for ideas. It belongs with my favorite FMQ book, Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters.
Thanks for the reviews – I like to have opinions on books I can’t flip through locally other than the ones on Amazon that may or may not be written by the author, publisher or friends/enemies of.
No problem, Carly. It can be very disappointing to order a book you think will be great and open it up and think to yourself ‘crap – I spent my money on this?’