Mastering the Art of Longarm Quilting

Mastering the Art of Longarm Quilting
By Gina Perkes
Gifted by C&T Publishing
www.ctpub.com
Reviewed by Jessica Nichols, Editor of FaveQuilts.com

Mastering the Art of Longarm Quilting by Gina Perkes is a guide to machine quilting that will help you hone your longarm quilting skills. Whether you are practicing longarm quilting to use on your own quilts or to do as a home business, Perkes' tips, teaching, and advice are sure to help you improve your style and technique. With 40 original designs and pages of helpful information on techniques and tools, this book is the go-to guide for any longarm quilter.

As a former professional longarm quilter, a winner of many quilt show awards, and a longarm quilting teacher, Perkes has the knowledge and experience to help any novice longarm quilter become an expert. She begins Mastering the Art of Longarm Quilting with a few words on how to find inspiration for new quilting patterns. Perkes provides ideas of ways to spark your creativity and places to find new patterns and designs for quilting. It is clear from the way Perkes writes about inspiration and design that she considers longarm quilting an art form. She continues by describing the different purposes of quilts and how those purposes and uses will affect the choice of quilting designs. This section of the book will get quilters thinking practically about what kinds of patterns are best for their projects.

Perkes begins the more technical section of Mastering the Art of Longarm Quilting with instructions for quilting block and border designs. She includes tips on important skills like making evenly spaced scallops or creating symmetrical designs. She also explains how to mark quilts with design plans, including instructions on how to make a lightbox. Her next section covers freehand quilting, i.e. working without marking patterns ahead of time. After these more basic introductions to machine quilting, Perkes starts focusing on different kinds of designs, with sections on Feathers and Fillers and Gridwork. She also includes a comprehensive guide to different types of thread with tips on choosing colors, weights, and fiber content. Mastering the Art of Longarm Quilting also includes practical sections on the logistics of actually doing longarm quilting and how to finish and care for your quilt after it is quilted.

Mastering the Art of Longarm Quilting ends with a finale of quilting designs. The majority of the designs fit neatly into individual blocks and corners, but Perkes also includes a few more pictorial designs, like birds and flowers, that can be used anywhere on a quilt. The designs range in style from tribal patterns like Bora Bora and Totem Tango to more traditional motifs like Royal Crown and Tuscan Flourish. Perkes provides 40 designs for all different styles of quilts, so even an inexperienced longarm quilter will have plenty of new ideas and patterns to play with.