I was interested in reading this book because it is one of the few quilting books that discusses quilting design. When I first picked it up to glance at the pretty pictures, my jaw dropped at some of these quilts that Pauline Burbidge has put together. She has created some fabulous images using a variety of techniques. I was especially impressed with her three dimensional designs and her use of color.

Pauline Burbidge has been quilting since 1975 and studied fashion and textiles at St. Martin's School of Art in London. She is one of only a few professional quilters in Great Britain. It is easy to see the effects of her textile and pattern design training in her quilts.

This book is organized into workshop sections under two subject headings. The first part of the book deals with technique and the second with design. She begins with a basic lesson on making templates, a skill that most modern quilters seem to have moved away from. While making templates can be cumbersome and time consuming there really is no substitute for precision piecing. Many of Pauline's designs have to be precisely seamed for the effect to work. She briefly discusses sewing angled and curved seams as well.

From there she moves onto an applique workshop. She creates elaborate fabric "collages" using applique embellished with stitching. This chapter is followed by a discussion of quilting and assembly techniques. One topic that I found interesting is the way she machine quilts in sections and then assembles the whole quilt rather than dealing with the bulk of an entire quilt at one time.

The final workshop in the Techniques section is one on fabric dyeing and painting. All of the quilts pictured in the book are made with solid colored fabrics rather than prints and if you have ever looked at the supply available in a fabric store, you know that the selections are pretty basic and rather limited. She solved this problem by learning to dye her own fabrics.

The design section of the book is fascinating to read and the photos that accompany the text are works of art. She has workshops on strip piecing, geometric three-dimensional design, and making fabric collages. Each technique is completely different and she makes it look so simple I wanted to rush right out and start a new project. The only thing lacking was that when she discussed three dimensional design, she did not give any tips for assembling the blocks so I have had to resort to scrutinizing the photos to figure out how they were put together.

There is one exercise that I think is absolutely essential to do and that is her Color and Image Collecting Workshop. Color is such an important aspect of quiltmaking and I think very often quilters are intimidated by color selection and do not have a good sense of what colors complement each other and how to create contrast in the right place and end up with quilts that are put together beautifully but are just seem to be missing something. Pauline Burbidge's quilts are an eyeful and her choices of color are breathtaking and bold at times.

This book is a good read for those interested in creating quilts as an artistic expression of themselves. I have enjoyed it completely and plan to refer to it often. And if you see a short, dark haired lady in Home Depot swiping paint chips that will be me adding to my color workbook!

If you are interested in purchasing the book from Amazon.com, just click on the image of the book above.