Strip-Smart Quilts: 16 Designs from One Easy Technique

Strip-Smart Quilts: 16 Designs from One Easy Technique
by Kathy Brown
ISBN: 978-1-60468-055-3
Gifted by Martingale
www.shopmartingale.com
Reviewed by Kathryn Wright, Editor of FaveQuilts.com

One of the best ways to create a series of different quilt patterns is one of the easiest. In Kathy Brown's Strip-Smart Quilts: 16 Designs from One Easy Technique, she reveals just how much you can do with strip quilting techniques. This book includes easy designs that all use strip quilting in different ways to create intricate designs that are much easier to create than one might think. Find a pattern that suits your aesthetic and learn how you can make it your own with standard strip quilting techniques.


Brown offers a charming and knowledgeable look into one of the most resourceful methods of quilting. She encourages quilters to be creative and do things a little differently when it suits you. While she says this, she also provides quilters with the basics for how to complete a quilt from start to finish to ensure that no matter what level you're at, you'll be able to successfully make your own strip quilt without trouble.

If you have any preconceived ideas about how strip quilts look, prepare to abandon them when you see the variety amongst the 16 patterns included in Strip-Smart Quilts. Not only will you receive inspiring stories as to how the designs were created, but also a full breakdown of each major series of steps with helpful images for extra reference. Strips are very versatile when it comes to quilt patterns, which you'll find out once you see how many ways they're used to assemble quilt blocks.

My personal favorite from this book was "Family Vacation" (pg. 66), which creates a cool and tropical atmosphere by bringing together solid colors and exotic patterns while creating a more eye-catching kind of depth with a series of interlocking strip quilt patterns.