Book Review: Fearless Design for Every Quilter

In my last post, I mentioned the Practical Design workshop I've participated in for the last few years. I recently got my hands on the newest book by design teacher Lorraine Torrence, Fearless Design for Every Quilter (C&T Pub. 2009) and was delighted to see that she has presented a workshop in design in book format.

Basically, the idea of the book is this: focusing on elements of design and composition, a group of quilt artists take on small challenges and all of their results are shared and critiqued. So this book provides a lot of great information: basic principles on design and composition and color; aspects of positive critiquing; specific challenges; examples of what the artists did; and the critiques each result garnered. It's very instructive.

The book features artists of different styles and abilities, so the challenge pieces they produce vary and will appeal to different tastes. Even when the resulting piece wasn't something I was wild about, I found that I enjoyed reading about the artist's process, the problems she encountered, etc.

Working through the exercises in this book would be a great way to give yourself a home design course, or to work through with a friend. And there are springboard ideas, too, so you're not limited to the specific assignments set out here.

I was very glad to find this book, and I'll be recommending it to my friends.