Hello! Thank you for visiting my Math Quilts Online Bookstore. The recommendations and reviews at this site are my own, and the book order processing is provided by Amazon.com. You'll find more information about this arrangement in a letter from Amazon.com president Jeff Bezos.
Please order books directly from this site. Your order will be handled by Amazon.com, and I'll get a return on each book. Then I can buy more quilting and math books to review. (I'll buy more fabric, too.)
Rebecca Chaky
P.S. I use "new" icons to draw attention to new reviews, and change the icon color every month.
| Symbol | Meaning |
 | Reviewed September 1999 |
 | Reviewed March 2000 |
 | Reviewed |
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The Basic Quiltmaking section progresses from basic quilting how-tos, to a surfeit of quilt block patterns, then to quilting (joining the layers) and finishing the edges. (For color guidance, see the Color section below.)
You may be familiar with Marianne Fons and Liz Porter from their quilting show "Sew Many Quilts" on PBS. I like their book, Quilter's Complete Guide. They provide information for beginners, but continue to advanced techniques. For instance, I'm intrigued by their Mariner's Compass piecing technique, where they show how to cut little "tabs" to make gripping the points easier. This book is up to date with rotary cutting techniques. (Reviewed May 1998)
If you don't want to deal with any advanced techniques for a while and do want a lot of detail in beginning techniques, consider Joy of Quilting by Joan Hanson and Mary Hickey. They give detailed directions for a variety of quilting techniques and patterns. (Reviewed May 1998)
For sheer volume of information, The Complete Book of Patchwork, Quilting & Applique by Linda Seward can't be beat. This volume has terse prose, small print and easily 1000 drawings. The flavor of the book is that of boiled-down information presented in high density, with little personality or varying from the topic at hand. This book just may be complete, though, from basic techniques to dozens of special techniques including tucks, waffles, broderie perse, cathedral window, reverse applique and yo-yos. This book appears to be British in origin, judging from the spelling, and provides a different outlook from beginning books commonly available here in the States. Don't expect a great deal of detail on any one topic (rotary cutting is explained on page 19), but instead turn to this book for the basics on many topics. The photos of antique quilts are spectacular. (Reviewed September 1998)
I wholeheartedly recommend Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman. I first became acquainted with this monumental work in the late 1970s, when Barbara published it section by section. Now, it is available in a handsome hardcover edition. Barbara catalogued every pieced pattern she could find in print, from the mid-1800s through 1980. She then created a quilt taxonomy, with a systematic method for placing each pattern in the correct place. Don't expect any pretty color pictures. Instead, you will find thousands of line drawings of quilt patterns, with their names and sources. (Reviewed April 1998)
Ruth McDowell's piecing is so complex, so sinuous, that it is often mistaken for applique. In her book, Piecing : Expanding the Basics, she gives an inside view of the process she uses to create her art quilts. I particularly enjoyed how she created the image of a bear using log cabin piecing techniques. I recommend this book for intermediate to advanced quilters, particularly those who want to create pictorial quilts on their sewing machine with a minimum of additional handwork. (Reviewed July 1998)
Sensational Settings: Over 80 Ways to Arrange Your Quilt Blocks by Joan Hanson is packed with traditional settings, both straight and diagonally set. In addition, she has a section on medallion settings. If you are the proud owner of a set of quilt blocks, consult this book while you decide how to arrange them. (This is a particularly good book for those of us participating in scrap block exchanges.) (Reviewed July 1998)
Add Pieced Borders: The Complete Resource by Judy Martin and Marsha McCloskey to your short list of really essential quilt books. Judy and Marsha provide 200 stock borders with both templates and directions for rotary cutting, which alone would be worth the price of the book. Add in their general guidelines for border size and color, design and drafting, and their nitty-gritty information on 8 categories of borders, and then add in complete quilt patterns for 12 quilts (including a feathered star), and the book starts to look like a real bargain. Color pictures of more than 50 of their quilts appear throughout the book, along with explanations of the process Judy and Marsha went through to choose the borders. (Reviewed June 1998)
Harriet Hargrave is the best-known name in heirloom machine quilting. Her book Heirloom Machine Quilting : A Comprehensive Guide to Hand-Quilted Effects Using Your Sewing Machine takes machine quilting way beyond the ordinary grid quilting to incorporate free-motion designs, such as feathers and stippling. Her directions are clear and detailed, and the color pictures are lovely. (Reviewed April 1998)
Happy Endings: Finishing the Edges of Your Quilt by Mimi Dietrich provides complete nuts-and-bolts details on how to finish the edges of your quilt. Several alternatives to binding are given. Bound edges include miters, scallops, corded binding and traditional and French binding. Directions for binding generally start with a 2" strip, resulting in 1/2" traditional or 3/8" French binding. Then there are ruffles, prairie points, pleats and lace. Four pages of color photos show samples made using all the techniques. This book is well illustrated, detailed and clear. (On page 2, Mimi acknowledges "My Mom and Dad, who taught me to finish things." Unfortunately, a detailed description of how that was done was not included in the book.) (Reviewed July 1998)
I thought Mimi Dietrich's book Happy Endings (above) had everything that could be said about finishing a quilt. Then I bought a copy of A Fine Finish: New Bindings for Award-Winning Quilts by Cody Mazuran. Shapely, exquisite, undulating, embellished, sculpted and styled with finesse, these edges are like nothing else I've seen. Techniques include piping, sculpted frames, ruching, inward-pointing prairie points and edge loops with yoyos. (Reviewed September 1998)
Jinny Beyer's The Scrap Look : Designs, Fabrics, Colors and Piecing Techniques for Creating Multi-Fabric Quilts is the best book I know of for one-patch patterns. One-patches are patterns made from a single shape. Trip Around the World, for instance, is made from a single square shape. Jinny includes quilts based on triangles, squares, rectangles, clamshells, and hexagons and portions thereof. Among the color pictures is one of her quilt Ode to Vasarely, based on a 60 degree diamond shape. If you are thinking of starting a charm quilt (in which no fabric is repeated), this book is for you. (Reviewed April 1998)
Quilts from Simple Shapes: Triangles by Mary Coyne Penders
Quilts from Simple Shapes: Squares by Mary Coyne Penders
Quilts from Simple Shapes: Rectangles by Mary Coyne Penders
All Quilt Blocks Are Not Square : Innovative Piecing and Quilting of Hexagons, Triangles, Curves, and More by Debra Wagner
Picture a regular (all sides equal) triangle; then a regular rectangle (i.e., a square); then a regular pentagon; then a regular hexagon. With each step, the polygon becomes more "round". In fact, if you could continue this process an infinite number of times, you would obtain a circle. The circle, then, is the ultimate polygon. It's hard to believe that Patchwork Patterns : For All Crafts That Use Geometric Design, Quilting, Stained Glass, Mosaics, Graphics, Needlepoint, Jewelry, Weaving, and Woodwork by Jinny Beyer was published in 1979! In this book, Jinny introduced her paper-folding method of pattern drafting. Patterns range from the four-patch to hexagons, five-pointed stars, curved patchwork, and oval mariner's compass. While today we would probably draw the blocks on the computer rather than folding paper, this books is nonetheless a treasure for an understanding of the underlying geometry of traditional quilt blocks. There are only two color plates, including her quilt Ray of Light which was the national winner of the Great Quilt Contest in 1978. (Reviewed July 1998)
Quilter's Album of Blocks and Borders by Jinny Beyer is bereft of color pictures. It is rich with block patterns, though, including over 1000 blocks and borders. Included is a transparency printed with four-patch, five-patch, eight-pointed star and other grids, so you can determine the underlying grid for each of the blocks displayed. As with her other books, Jinny takes us several layers deeper than typical quilt pattern books. (Reviewed July 1998)
Patchwork Portfolio : A Presentation of 165 Original Quilt Designs, by Jinny Beyer, is a beautiful book. Jinny describes herself as a "contemporary quiltmaker working in a traditional style." She demonstrates what this means with over 160 original geometric block patterns. This is not a pattern book, however, as no templates or rotary cutting directions are given. Instead, Jinny describes the process of drafting original block designs by fragmenting the basic grids. Feathered Stars and Mariner's Compass are included. This elegant book contains color photos of some of Jinny's well-known quilts, including Borealis and Aurora. This is Jinny's fifth book. (Reviewed July 1998)
Back in 1983 when Patchworkbook : Easy Lessons for Creative Quilt Design and Constructions (a Dover Needlework book) by Judy Martin was published, this book was unusual in its approach to the overall quilt design, as opposed to block patterns. Still, it goes through the usual sashing and alternate-plain-block settings before finally "compressing" blocks to get an overall design. In other words, it has a definite traditional feel. While this book still has a great deal of useful information (especially for interesting traditional settings), it seems dated by the choice of fabric colors and lack of mention of rotary cutting. (Reviewed April 1998)
Pattern Play : Creating Your Own Quilts by Doreen Speckmann introduces Doreen's system of standard pattern components, including her own Peaky and Spike. The focus is on quilt design, using traditional components to create whole-quilt block arrangements. Be warned that Doreen doesn't include rotary cutting guidelines either, although she explains why she prefers templates. I highly recommend this book for its design content, great color pictures, black and white line drawings and humorous text. (Reviewed April 1998)
In Pattern on Pattern : Stunning Quilts from Simple Traditional Blocks, Ruth McDowell combines color transparency with multiple sizes of geometric blocks to create "reverberation." Probably the most successful examples in this book are the simplest. For example, Maple Leaf, Four Patch Variation, Merry-Go-Round and Clay's Choice are all attractive, dramatic quilts. Her Cherry Basket quilt is one of my favorites. I appreciated the more complex, busy patterns such as Double T only after reading her explanation. Ruth McDowell's books are strong on showing the process she uses to create her art quilts. And, her general discussion of the geometric reverberation is excellent. The major flaw of this book is an unsatisfying treatment of the concept of color transparency, which I expected to be treated more directly since color transparency is one of the two major ideas combined here. Be that as it may -- Ruth McDowell's first book offers a unique approach to designing unusual quilts. And as she says, "...the field is open and the territory almost completely unexplored." The color pictures and line drawings are high quality, and templates are provided for 20 of the quilts. (Reviewed June 1998)
Designing Tessellations : The Secrets of Interlocking Patterns by Jinny Beyer
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Polygons
With that in mind, I have included a wonderful book on circle quilt patterns in the Polygon section. Striplate Piecing: Piecing Circle Designs With Speed and Accuracy by Debra Wagner is an extensive guide to circular patterns. Included are familiar patterns such as Kansas Sunflower, Baby Bunting, Pickle Dish and Double Wedding Ring (both circular and "squashed" versions), as well as some spectacular varietals such as Rattlesnake, Candy Dish, Egyptian Lotus and Madras Interchange. This well-done hardback book has great photos and line drawings. The directions are clear, and assume no prior quilting knowledge on the part of the reader. (I would not recommend the patterns in this book to a beginner, but instead to intermediate to advanced quilters.) Debra's term "striplate" refers to her method for sewing before cutting (like Seminole or fast-triangle) the component pieces of the circular pattern, in order to reduce the number of pieces to be handled when piecing a block. It is unfortunate, as extensive as this book is, that it doesn't have an index, but that is the only real criticism I have of it. This book is well worth having for the availability of the 20 patterns, the color pictures, the step-by-step directions and the striplate method. (Reviewed September 1998)
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Quilt Pattern Design
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Feathered Stars
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Tessellations and Tiling
Introduction to Tessellations by Dale Seymour and Jill Britton begins with triangles and other simple geometric shapes, and progesses through 250 pages to Escher-like tessellations. With black and white graphic figures on almost every page, this book is accessible to school-age through adult readers. This would be an excellent resource for a math classroom, with its thorough treatment of symmetry and transformations. The five-page bibliography includes suggested grade levels (e.g., "Grade 5 to adult"). Or, combined with Ruth McDowell's machine piecing book above, this could be the jumping-off point for a quilter interested in creating unique tessellation quilts. Quilters, check out the line drawings in Chapter 5, Techniques for Generating Tessellations. Even the chapter heading illustration for Chapter 5 looks like a quilt!
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Escher
Visions of Symmetry : Notebooks, Periodic Drawings, and Related Work of M.C. Escher by Dr. Doris Schattschneider is a beautifully-illustrated, mathematically-sophisticated book. The purpose of the book is to answer the author's question, how did Escher do it? The author found her answer in the journal notebooks Escher kept. Dr. Schattschneider explores the underlying grid, in terms of crystallographic symmetry groups, of many of Escher's works. She examines Escher's growth in taking his own direction, while she provides the context of other artistic, scientific and mathematical developments. Although Escher was not a good math student and felt "mathematically insecure," he grew to enjoy his interaction with scientists and mathematicians. "But our path through life can take strange turns," he noted. This is a great book for serious students of M. C. Escher.
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Geometry
The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry, text by David Wells and illustrations by John Sharp
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Optical Illusions for Quilters by Karen Combs
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Mariner's Compass Quilts: New Directions by Judy Mathieson
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Isometric Perspective Designs and How to Create Them by John Locke
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| In 1983 I purchased The Fractal Geometry of Nature by Benoit Mandelbrot. At that time the branch of mathematics called "fractals" was causing a lot of excitement because it was unique in that it was truly new -- that is, it was invented (or discovered) in the twentieth century, and its inventor (Mandelbrot) was still living. This particular book was the first of several written by Mandelbrot to bring the subject of fractals to a wide audience. Fractals describe the geometry of irregular and fragmented patterns of nature, which were previously considered to be amorphous shapes not suitable for study. Fractals are commonly used today in computer generation of landscapes for movies, as one example. Colorful fractal images abound on the world wide web, presented as art. I see this as being a little-tapped source of images for quilters. I used the Flow Snake (described on page 70 as the Peano-Gosper Curve) as the basis for my quilt, Flow Snake. Advanced quilters, consider purchasing Ruth McDowell's machine piecing book above, to devise a truly unique quilt based on fractals. The Fractal Geometry of Nature would be an excellent addition to a math classroom, for the first expository chapters explaining the concept of fractals, and for creating student interest with the eye-catching graphic figures. This is a textbook (although lacking in exercises at the ends of the chapters), which I imagine would be appropriate to a college class or as an enrichment text for an advanced high school math class.
|  Flow Snake of Order 3 |
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This section on color includes books targeted toward quilters, a historically significant text for artists, and a text directed to a science-oriented audience.
Color for Quilters by Susan R. McKelvey
Color Confidence for Quilters by Jinny Beyer
Color Confidence: Color Help (VHS Tape) by Jinny Beyer
The Enjoyment and Use of Color by artist/teacher Walter Sargent was first published in 1923, and is currently available in an inexpensive Dover edition. It is strong on text with a few line drawings and only 7 pages in color. Sargent describes a "finder" on page 17, a rectangular opening in a piece of cardboard, used to view a scene for the purpose of isolating a single color; quilters can use the same technique to study the effect of justaposed colors. The chapter on color sensations includes the traditional meanings of colors, an interesting topic when planning a commemorative quilt. (Reviewed May 1998)
Have you ever wondered why two fabrics that look like they're the identical color under the incandescent light of your sewing room look different under the fluorescent light of your quilt show? The Physics and Chemistry of Color: The Fifteen Causes of Color by Kurt Nassau is a textbook with answers to just such questions. Be warned that this is a relatively expensive textbook which contains more technical detail on the topic than most quilters want. I would only recommend this to those who want a deeper understanding than most, and yes, a technical background doesn't hurt. If you have burning "why" questions on color, this is the place to turn. (Reviewed May 1998)
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There is a big variation in just how "quilty" are these quilt-related works of fiction.
In Earlene Fowler's Bennie Harper mystery series, the main character is (among other things) a quilter. Although there isn't much serious quilting going on, the characters tend to be involved in activities such as quilting and sewing, art, folklore, and 4H. Each mystery is named for a quilt pattern, and the paperbacks sport wonderful covers illustrating the pattern as a border, a (usually rumpled) quilt, and a realistic scene. If you like quilts and mysteries, check these out. In order, they are:
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