Slice and Sew Fat Quarters to Make Striking Quilts. Simple technique: cut strips, join, slice, and sew! Great for fabricaholics - search your stash for strata possibilities. Make your quilt spectacular with special borders, appliqué, and quilting. What's the secret to making an easy quilt masterpiece? Create "strata," or panels of various-width fabric strips sewn together, and then use them to piece beautiful blocks. Even beginners will have no trouble cutting and sewing perfect blocks into striking designs. The gallery highlights a variety of design possibilities.

Eliminate the guessing games and take your cues directly from your quilt for planning the most complementary quilting design. This unique 4-step approach from expert long arm quilter, Barbara Persing, covers four major quilt groups: Traditional, Contemporary, Art, and Children's. Master your design skills with a variety of free-motion and continuous-line ideas. Try basic all-over patterns or create a custom heirloom style, with no marking required. A beautiful abundance of quilt imagery illustrates techniques that any quilter can use by hand or machine. Now you'll always have the answer to the question, “How should I quilt this?”

Turn bold and unusual fabrics into stunningly beautiful quilts with this guide to creative yet surprisingly simple patterns. Fabrics that feature unique, colorful, or graphic designs can be as irresistible as they are challenging. How do you cut and arrange such beautiful fabric to use in a quilt? Art quilter Aletha Ballard provides the answer in Maverick Quilts. Alethea combines straightforward instruction on the basics of quilting with ten versatile and creative projects that are perfect for showing off bold designs and large-scale prints. Easy to follow and beautifully illustrated, Maverick Quilts show you just how easy it is to sew wild, joyful, colorful quilts with the fabrics you love.

“New ideas for quilting with ties . . .projects include covers, wall-hangings, runners, and pillows.” —Publishers Weekly As life gets less formal, neckties don’t get worn like they used to, leaving us with a stash of unused ties. Recycle those lonely ties into 16 spectacular quilts and home accessories that look nothing like the typical stodgy necktie quilt! Showcase the rich colors, patterns, and textures found in ties with striking Hexagons, Log Cabins, Lone Stars, Flying Geese, and more. Learn how to wash ties, cut them, create appealing color combinations, and tame slippery fabric for quilting. Tie quilts make uniquely personal Father's Day, birthday, or any-occasion gifts for the tie-wearers (or former tie wearers) in your life—and this book is filled with projects for both beginners and experienced quiltmakers.

Simple Piecing - Spectacular Quilts • One great technique, a variety of different looks! • LEARN TO USE VALUE: Create glowing effects by choosing a gradated range of fabrics. • Super-easy piecing means fast quilt construction • Make it yours with pretty borders, separator bands, and other creative variations Color is key when you "braid" a variety of fabrics into an eye-catching quilt. Learn to identify value in fabric and use it to create the effect you want-in these quilts and every quilt you make! Fourteen projects range from striking wall hangings to bed quilts.

Alys’s whole world was comprised of the history project that was due, her upcoming violin audition, being held tightly in the arms of her boyfriend, Ben, and laughing with her best friend, Delilah. At least it was—until she found herself on the wrong end of a shotgun in the school library. Her suburban high school had become one of those places you hear about on the news—a place where some disaffected youth decided to end it all and take as many of his teachers and classmates with him as he could. Except, in this story, that youth was Alys’s own brother, Luke. He killed fifteen others and himself, but spared her—though she’ll never know why. Alys’s downward spiral begins instantly, and there seems to be no bottom. A heartbreaking and beautifully told story.