Several months ago I received a copy of Angela Walters book “Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters: Choose and Use Quilting Designs for Modern Quilts.” I was provided the book by C&T Publishing and asked to review it for my readers.

Life intervened, with medical issues for my husband and my sister, and with my web host going wacko and taking down my site. As a result of all that my review was never published.

So today I’m going to share with you my thoughts on the book. Even though I was given a copy to read, my review is my own honest opinion and is not influenced in any way by anyone.

In my quilting library I have copies of both the Shape by Shape books Angela has written. I find myself referring to them quite often. Whenever my creative juices aren’t flowing, I can usually get them going again by looking through these books and am inspired by the designs inside. They have rescued me from what I call ‘quilters block’ several times. So I was really looking forward to reading this next addition to my collection.

“Free Motion Quilting” is divided into three sections:
 – Getting Started
 – The Designs
 – Using the Designs in Modern Quilts

The Getting Started section is especially helpful to those quilters who are just beginning to explore free motion quilting, or those who aren’t totally comfortable with quilting their own quilts. Angela provides good tips on getting started, supplies you may need, and threads that she uses. She also points out that these designs can be quilted on any kind of machine – longarm, sit-down machine, or a regular sewing machine.

As in her other books, the designs are broken down in a step-by-step manner, explaining in detail exactly how to quilt each one. Designs covered are swirls/circles, squares, lines/vines, arcs and points. In addition to showing how each design is created, Angela provides tips on how to make the designs work on modern quilts. There are some pretty cool motifs that would be perfect for allover quilting.

In addition to the designs, there is a chapter on how to quilt the designs on modern quilts. This was the chapter I was most interested in. I’m always studying the quilting of others to see how they work their designs into blocks and negative spaces. There was good information in this chapter but it was info that I found I already knew. The copyright on this book is 2012, so a lot of the information discussed here is already floating around the internet, on Instagram and/or Pinterest.

If you are looking to expand your quilting library, or want to take the leap into quilting your own quilts then I would definitely recommend this book. If you already have several quilting books, and especially if you own other books by Angela, then you may find that there’s not much new information in this book for you, simply because it is already 8 years old. I do like the way it is laid out, and the way she breaks down each design. It is well written, and Angela’s voice really comes through. It’s like she’s right there in the room with you!

In other news, I’ve been a busy little bee with Freddie. We’ve been working well together and finished 3 customer quilts last week as well as one of my own. YES! On Saturday I loaded up one of my own quilts, quilted it, trimmed it, and got the binding all stitched on. Can you believe it??!! I actually felt a little guilty working on one of my quilts when there are customer quilts to do, but it was a good guilty. Know what I mean?

Here’s just a sneak peek for you. I’ll share the quilt in full when the pattern is released. I’m working on it now and hope to have it ready for you soon.

Okay guys – that’s it for me today. I hope you are staying safe and well and making the most of a difficult time. I’m just focusing on the good things in my life and obeying our stay at home order. I have to admit, I kinda like this staying at home time.

Now it’s time for you to share what you’ve been working on – what projects have you excited to be in your sewing space? You can link up any blog post, Instagram or Flickr pic. Here’s how: