Heat Press Batting Together Book-Build As You Go Machine Quilting

This is a review for Heat Press Batting Together Book-Build As You Go Machine Quilting by Amy Smith and Jean Harwood                                                                                                 

This book was more of a booklet than a book. I didn't realize just how few pages there would be. The only color photos were on the back and front cover of the booklet. The quilt on the front cover is in reality, a table runner and not nearly big (at least from the instructions measurements inside the book) as it looks. So if you think you will get a baby or twin size quilt if you make this, you would have to add more blocks to get it wide enough.

ALL the illustrations inside the book were small black and white photos which made the steps difficult to see. For me doing a quilt as you go type quilt, literally means that! When you have finished the last block and attached it to the quilt, other than the binding, the quilt is done. In this case, once you have the quilt put together, then you add the entire backing and use machine stitches to tack it down so it will stay in place. I'm also hesitant to start a project that requires extra supplies that need to be bought whether at a store, if any of my local fabric or quilting stores have them, or buy them on line.

One thing I was hoping to see more of was the decorative stitches. This was sort of the case where like many quilt instructions end with a quilt as desired - period, the end. I would have liked to see some info on best stitches to use if you have them such as which looks better satin stitches or a single stitch decorative design. I realize fully that many don't have all the wonderful stitches that are available to use, but at this point, every book I have ever seen that talks about using the decorative stitches, just seems to do the decorative stitches as desired thing. Perhaps I need to write a book that gives some guidance here!

The book does give some interesting ideas that can be used as part of a quilt as you go quilting method, but to me, it seems to be adding steps, not taking them away. I'm in the midst of a quilting project currently, but when I'm done I will probably try another quilt as you go quilt and see if some of the book's ideas will be helpful. Since we all approach quilting in a different manner, some might find this book to be of tremendous value. It would still help if other editions were made to have the photos in color though.

According to the description of the book Build As You Go, This second book includes the backing as part of the building process. Wish I had bought it first to see how the authors deal with all three layers of a quilt at the same time as well as attaching them.