Book Review
When we were asked to do a book review, I jumped at the chance to review this one. I have most of the other Lintott books in my craft library and was keen to see whether this one is as good as the others. My answer? Well, read on ….
Firstly, for those who don’t know, a dessert roll is a set of 20 strips 5” wide. I had never heard of them before this book.
Secondly, some of you may have come across Pam and Nicky Lintott before. They are a mother-and-daughter team from the UK who own a quilt shop – The Quilt Room – and have released a number of really successful books of quilt patterns from precut fabrics. I love that each book has a lot of patterns, that each pattern is presented in two colourways, and that the instructions seem pretty clear. I say that the instructions seem pretty clear because I usually don’t follow patterns – I just use the books for inspiration. I don’t like to follow rules in my quilting life – I have enough of that in my professional life!
One of the reasons I was excited by this book is that I don’t have much time or mental energy for sewing at the moment, so I was attracted to the idea of making a quick-and-easy quilt from precut fabrics with less effort and fewer decisions than if I had used a jelly roll.
To road test the book, I chose the Weekender quilt because of the simplicity of the pattern and because I loved the sample made using ‘Reunion’ by Sweetwater for Moda. It was also aptly named for a weekend retreat project.
To see a picture of the sample, click here:
The Quilt Room Jack in the Box (Weekender) Quilt
I decided this quilt would be for my younger son’s bed. I decided to select my own fabrics rather than use a dessert roll (they are hard to find in Australia and I didn’t like any of the available choices). My rough idea was to use a range of blues with accents of red and white, to celebrate his American birth (10 years ago). I covered my design wall with fabric from my stash and asked for his comments. He was very decisive about what he liked and didn’t like – he took down three quarters of the fabrics I had selected and told me which one he really loved. This really made me chuckle because I bought that fabric 11 years ago to make him a baby quilt (and never did). I was very proud of his good eye for fabric selection (and for showing so much interest!)
This is the selection we agreed to.
This is what I managed to achieve during the retreat (as well as eating, drinking red wine, talking, communing with nature, etc).
The quilt is still in pieces because I’m going to quilt it in sections. I’ll put up a photo when I finish it (hopefully some time before he turns 21!)
The pattern required partial seams, which I had never attempted before, but I found the instructions really clear and it went together easily. I’m glad to have learned a new technique.
In general, the book is lovely to look at and easy to read and follow. The samples are inspiring. The recipes included in each chapter are probably quite good, but they were wasted on me. My only disappointment was that there isn’t as much content or as much eye candy in this book as in the previous Lintott books. Overall, it is a good book, but I would recommend earlier Lintott books over this one.
Enjoy.
Alex.