CLEARANCE

Quilting Wide Open Spaces

by Judi Madsen

  This item has not been reviewed yet

Quilting Wide Open Spaces by Judi Madsen is an excellent resource for machine quilters of all levels. The author’s expertise, as both a quilt designer and custom longarm quilter, is evident in her discussion of piecing, pressing, and marking tips, simple and complex quilting designs, and six quilt patterns with detailed instructions for piecing and machine quilting each quilt. She encourages quilters to leave wide open spaces to highlight machine quilting as an art form in itself. Allover designs are mentioned as a practical way to finish a quilt faster and/or make more money as a professional longarm quilter. The focus of the book is to encourage and enable quilters to do custom machine quilting, whether for themselves or customers.

Some of my favorite features of this book include: information about the type of batting, thread, and fabric used in each quilt, her reason for occasionally using two layers of batting, suggestions for marking designs and filling in the background, and photos of the backs of her quilts. Judi Madsen likes to use thread to match each area and the same color thread on the top and bottom. Since she uses solid fabric on the back, you can really see the quilting design; the back looks as good as the front! She encourages quilters, wanting to master custom quilting, to practice a lot, quilt only when in the mood, and take breaks to just look when needed. Even quilters who own many machine quilting books (like myself) will find new information and inspiration in Quilting Wide Open Spaces.