Contains over 700 how-to illustrations for backing quilts, embellishment, paper piecing, machine quilting, and using templates and stencils

Bring more beauty and balance to your quilt designs • Everything you need to know about the essentials of good design from an internationally reknowned expert • Learn about the key elements of design and how to apply strategies for success • Practice what you've learned with exercises at the end of each chapter • An inspiring gallery illustrates design concepts by many prominent quilters and artists - including Alex Anderson, Paula Nadelstern, and Ricky Tims - with over 150 images showcasing all styles of quilts and fabric art, from traditional to modern This is the design textbook for quilters. Joen presents the eight elements of design: line, direction, shape, color, value, texture, proportion, and scale. You'll learn how to work with these elements using many guiding design principles, such as unity and balance. Whether you consider yourself to be a quilter, an artist, or a crafter, you can improve your design skills by exploring Joen's fresh, innovative approach.

Photo tutorials show stitching in action for 50+ free-motion quilting designs to create modern quilts with classic style! Popular blogger and designer, Natalia Bonner, illustrates her instructions with detailed photos that make it easier to get beautiful results on your home sewing machine. Learn how to quilt all-over, as filler, on borders, and on individual blocks…using loops and swirls, feathers and flames, flowers and vines, pebbles and more! Includes tips for choosing batting and thread, layering and basting, starting and stopping, and prepping your machine are included. After you’ve practiced, show off your new skills with six geometric quilt projects.

Discover how to machine quilt using straight lines with one of 48 quilting ideas and 13 variations, from the author of Modern One-Block Quilts. Are feathers and swirls your fallback? Learn how satisfying it is to quilt with only straight lines! Quilting expert Natalia Bonner shares sixty new straight-line motifs to fill in triangles, square blocks, and borders, plus allover designs. Teach your walking foot some new tricks or practice controlled free-motion quilting with rulers. Domestic or longarm machine . . . the choice is yours! Each pattern comes with step-by-step photos, so quilters of all levels can conquer their fears of straight-line quilting, and learn to rock it! • Natalia Bonner fans, unite! Learn forty-eight straight-line quilting ideas and thirteen fun variations • Find freedom in the constraints of straight-line quilting and shine a spotlight on every intriguing angle • Use a longarm or home sewing machine to create geometric perfection, step-by-step

See it, stitch it! Thirty-five contemporary crazy-quilting stitches, photographed step by step. Rooted in the Victorian era, crazy quilting has a powerful allure for today's quilters, who use it to let loose and tell a unique story with fabric. Embrace crazy quilting with thirty-five must-know stitches and endless variations, shown in clear, step-by-step photographs for both right- and left-handed stitchers. Fine artist Sharon Boggon reveals design fundamentals to guide you in your process, so you can sew thoughtful, visually appealing blocks. Learn the theory and process behind this fascinating art: how to choose fabrics, piece stitch-and-flip blocks, and embellish seams with embroidery, beads, buttons, and charms. • Learn crazy-quilting techniques with colorful photos that show every detail • Combine fabric, embellishments, and thirty-five stitches, plus endless variations, into stunning crazy quilts as unique as you • Unpack savvy design principals to make order of the chaos and guide the viewer's eye around the block

Helps quilters to choose colors that work well together.

Color Inspiration to Make Every Quilt a Knockout. Develop a keen color sense with Joen’s easy visual coloring technique. Learn to use this foolproof technique to select your quilt’s colors and fabrics. Do you get stuck when choosing colors and fabrics for your quilts? Joen comes to your rescue with this amazingly simple, practically foolproof technique. Using visual coloring, you’ll learn to select colors you love in nature and duplicate the effect in your work. You’ll find tons of photographs, fabric-swatch examples, and gallery quilts using this color selection technique, plus 5 simple and beautiful quilt projects.