Book Review: Fool Proof Machine Quilting

On my quest to improve the ole' quilting skills I picked this book up from the library: Fool Proof Machine Quilting By Mary Mashuta

The technique that Mary explains in the book is brilliant. Using your walking foot, different threads and needles and freezer paper you can create intricate layered designs with relative ease. The book covers thread, needle and batting suggestions for different effects which I hadn't really seen before in any other how-to books.

She explains about preparing the quilt top and gives template making guidelines.

The cover of the book shows a nice example of what you can do with this method. Using a bunch of different template shapes she sews around the outline of the template and then mirrors it by following the first outline to double the effect. Thread selection plays a big part too -- by using a thicker thread and a top stitch needle the look completely changes and the quilting stands out even more.

Another great point is there is no math! All the templates are made by eyeballing - a particularly favorite method of mine. This was my first attempt at the method, which worked okay. I think a bigger space to work around makes the sewing easier. This clover was only 4" across and the curves were tight.

The method in this book is a good alternative to free-motion quilting. It gives a crisp finished look like straight line or in the ditch quilting, but with an added  design element that usually only comes with free-motion curves and loops. 

I have a stack of quilt tops to work on and I am going to try this method out but it is a little time consuming because you are doing each template separately and each block separately. So with a 3 outline design on 12 squares....well you see where that is going, but with any method it takes time to do it right.

Cheers!

Kelly