Creating Art Quilts with Panels

Creating Art Quilts with Panels is a new technique/tutorial book by Joyce Hughes covering a number of creative techniques for utilizing pre-printed panels to create hangings and quilts.  The author states that she began to introduce the use of pre-printed panels in her workshops because it allowed her students to concentrate on the techniques she was teaching instead of spending valuable classroom time on designing.

Released 8th Jan 2019 by Fox Chapel, it's 128 pages and available in paperback format.

The cover artwork gives a good capsule cross section of the techniques covered in the book.  There are some really innovative (and versatile - not just for quilting) techniques included.

The book begins with a teacher's statement about how and why she adopted the use of preprinted panels.  This is followed by a good introductory chapter which covers materials and supplies. The first 2 chapters make up about 20% of the page content. The 'meat' of the book is contained in the technique chapter which includes surface treatments, freehand work, thread painting and finishing and takes up about 30% of the material. These are followed by a tutorial series of 6 specific projects utilizing the techniques described earlier.  While they do use specific fabrics and panels, all are easily adaptable to other materials. The book ends with a photo gallery of work for further inspiration.

There is a (very) basic list of online resources included at the end, but no index.  It's a short book, so that shouldn't prove problematic.

There were several project techniques included in the book which immediately grabbed me and sent me scurrying into my sewing room to be tried out.  That's sort of my acid test for crafting books.  If they get my fingers twitching to stop reading and start trying, then they're ok by me! This one did.  She includes a stumpwork/fringework technique in the book which I -definitely- will incorporate into my machine stumpwork.

Beautifully photographed and well written instructions.

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.