Nature's Beauty in Applique: Pretty and Practical Projects by Susan Taylor Propst

Nature's Beauty in Applique: Pretty and Practical Projects
By Susan Taylor Propst
Gifted by Martingale
www.shopmartingale.com
Reviewed by Jessica Nichols, Editor of FaveQuilts.com

Draw your applique inspiration from the natural world with Nature's Beauty in Applique: Pretty and Practical Projects by Susan Taylor Propst. These small, quick projects finish up in no time and bring quilted beauty to your home. Each of the nine projects in the book is taken from a larger wall hanging that Propst made to depict a scene from Loch Ness. A serene swan sits on the lake, surrounded by picturesque mountains, trees, and abundant flowers. Each of these elements is highlighted in a smaller project in the book.

Nature's Beauty in Applique: Pretty and Practical Projects is a quilting book designed for the quilter who wants to make something beautiful and useful without making a huge time commitment. Rather than limiting her designs to just decorative wall hangings and mini quilts, Propst shows how her original floral appliques can be used to make delightful table runners, tote bags, placemats, and more. She also provides options for making the same quilted projects without her applique designs, so that quilters in a hurry can make pretty projects with pre-printed panels or favorite fabrics. Her versatile applique designs can also be easily applied to other projects. So if you love Propst's daffodil applique, you don't have to limit its use to just the tote bag pattern given in the book. You can put it on quilted pillows, table runners, wall hangings, and any other project you dream up!

As the subtitle suggests, Propst's projects are not only pretty, but also practical. For each project, she supplies colored applique templates to make it easy to figure out which fabrics are needed for each piece. She has also designed her applique templates so that quilters can use their favorite applique method, whether it be painstaking needleturn applique or quick and easy fusible applique. The beginning of the book also includes a detailed tutorial on the applique process so that even inexperienced quilters can enjoy the projects in this book. So whatever your quilting skill level, if you like flowers and quilts, you'll adore the projects in Nature's Beauty in Applique!