Topper or Quilter?

To be truthful, I am more a topper than a quilter.  Though I hand quilt the occasional small project (and I have about 35% of the quilting done on my butterfly quilt now), I outsource anything sizeable to a professional longarm quilter (and highly recommend Karen Thompson of Greenbrier Designs).  I've taken two free motion quilting classes but concluded it would take a major investment of time in practicing before I would ever be satisfied with the outcome.

I've used my walking foot to quilt straight lines on a few baby quilts but always thought that approach was rather limiting.  Well, I clearly don't have the imagination of Jacquie Gering, whose new book Walk, takes straight line quilting to a new dimension.

I became inspired just browsing through the book and even more enthused after I sat down to read it cover-to-cover.  Jacquie provides lots of instruction in how to use your walking foot,  how to mark your top (or not mark it for some designs), along with designs even a beginner can manage.  I particularly like shattered quilting, curved crosshatch, and some of the radiating line designs.  Though I probably won't attempt a bed size quilt on my machine, there are lots of designs in the book I can see using on a wall hanging or small throw.  

And the designs are not all straight lines as this sampling (the back cover of the book) shows.  I think you will find Walk to be a good addition to your quilting library.  And if you think Jacquie's name is familiar, you are probably right. She blogs at Tallgrass Prairie Studio and is Chairman of the Board of the international Modern Quilt Guild.

A big thank you to all of you who left comments on my last post, sharing how you got your start quilting.  I enjoyed reading all of the stories.