The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting- A Book Review

At Quiltcon 2016 in Pasadena, my sister and I took classes from both Angela Walters and Christa Watson and we enjoyed the classes greatly.  Both Angela and Christa are all about encouraging quilters to just try things out (even if it is not perfect) and get your quilts quilted!  I felt really inspired leaving their classes to work on trying out new motifs for my quilting.

I own previous books by both Angela and Christa and I was excited to find out that they wrote a new book together, titled “The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting, Long-Arm and Sit-Down”.  Personally, I quilt my quilts on a domestic machine, but is there a quilter out there who doesn’t wonder what it is like to quilt on a long-arm machine?  This book gives tips and helpful pointers for both sit-down and long-arm quilters!

 

 Photo Credit: Brent Kane and Martingale

The book is divided so that both Angela and Christa quilt the same quilt with different designs (the pages are color coded to tell you who is “talking” on that page).  Angela quilts the quilt on a long-arm machine and Christa quilts on a domestic machine.  However, often you can use either machine for either quilting design and it just serves to give you more ideas about how to quilt!  There are 10 different quilt patterns in this book, and then Angela and Christa sew them up and quilt them differently, so it is almost like 20 quilts in the book.

These pages from the book below are an example of how Angela and Christa take the same quilt and both offer a different spin on it!

Photo Credit: Brent Kane and Martingale

In the first part of the book, Angela and Christa talk about the items that they like to use when they quilt (marking pens, thread, rulers, etc) and then they talk about some best practices to use- both of them heavily encourage PRACTICE DAILY if you can to build up your skills.

Some interesting facts that I learned:

• You can’t quilt long vertical lines on a long-arm machine, only horizontal
• I learned about using rulers on long-arm machines (truthfully I had no idea these even existed)
• Christa talks about color-coding your quilting, where every color on the quilt has the same type of quilting- this is something that I really want to try out
• When using a sit-down machine, it is much easier to quilt different colors in different sections of the quilt (then when using a long-arm
• I learned that it can be hard to quilt large blocks on a long-arm machine

Each quilt in the book is designed to help you work on a specific aspect of quilting- there is a quilt for quilting borders and mastering the corners of borders, there is a wholecloth quilt (which looks amazing!), there is a quilt to work on filling negative space, quilts that use both the walking foot and free-motion foot (for sit-down quilters), etc etc.

One of my favorite quilts in the book is the Quatrefoil Applique quilt- Christa used this quilt to quilt different designs in each of the petals and she explains so many techniques in that section of the book!  I can definitely see myself using many of these quilting designs in my future quilts.

Photo Credit: Brent Kane and Martingale

 I was so interested in this quilt that I decided to try it out!  I made myself 4 of the curved pieces and made a "mini quilt" so that I could try out some of the designs.

I did three of the petals from Christa's designs and the upper right petal from Angela's design.  My favorite of these designs is the upper left "telephone cord" type design.  I could for sure see myself using this design in the future- it was quick and easy and I like the way it fills up the space.

Another one of my favorite quilts is the Wholecloth Quilt, "Swirling Butterflies".  They provide the design in the back of the book for you to copy onto your own quilt.  I would love to try this out, just for practice and to have tons and tons of practice of my free-motion quilting!

Photo Credit: Brent Kane and Martingale

One of the most interesting things that I learned from this book is that people who use sit-down machines (like me and Christa) have a completely different way of looking at quilts than people who use long-arm machines (like Angela).  I still have a desire to try out long-arm machines in the future but I have decided that for now I am very happy using my sit-down machine!  I also really liked the range of designs used in this book.  I can see myself paging through in the future looking for different motifs to use for my quilting.  It is so useful to get two different people’s take on quilting each of the quilts- it shows you how different styles of quilting can change the look of the quilt and also just helps you to have more ideas for quilting your own quilts!  I would recommend this book to everyone who is trying to quilt their own quilts- modern quilters, traditional quilters, sit-down quilters, long-arm quilters- there is something in this book for everyone!

This book is available several places (all non-affiliate links):

Christa has signed copies

Angela has signed copies

The Martingale website

Amazon.com 

I was provided with an e-copy of this book in exchange for my review.  All opinions are my own and I probably would have purchased it anyway!