Fantasy Floral Quilts: Creating with Silk Flowers

These exquisite quilts made of fabric and silk flowers, and embellished with glistening threads and beads, are a delight to the eye, a focal point in decor, and a conversation piece! If you like fabric and flowers, here's the way to combine them, using your sewing skills, deft hands, and an eye for design. The abundant, beautifully photographed quilt designs in the book will certainly get you started, whether to copy one, or to use as inspiration for creating your own designs. The author's experience with teaching classes on this technique comes through in the thorough, yet easy to understand instructions. There are some supplies the author mentions that I had never heard of, so the list of resources, including some web addresses, is helpful. The price of the book seems a little high, but if you make only one of these fabric masterpieces, it will be worth it!

You know all those silk flowers you couldn't resist in those shops that you dragged your husband and kids to on your last vacaton? Then when you got home they were carefully tucked away until inspiration came to arrange and diplay them in your home. Well, grab your prettiest ones and those relagated to the bottom of the drawer and open to any page of Bonnie McCaffery's latest book, "Fantasy Floral Quilts". That's just what I did. Fun ideas came tumbling at me faster than I could dissect those delphiniums and run to the nearest fabric store for a selection of tulle to compliment those lillies languishing in my growing cache of faux blossoms. You won't believe how many kinds of new flowers you can invent with your newly educated eye and what you have on hand or what you can find in craft shops. Then all the ways you can use your innovations with Ms McCaffery's help. This book stands alone as one aspect of modern quilt "technology". You should see this book for yourself, it's a new look on the quilt horizon that you won't want to miss.

You never knew how EASY a technique could be, and what abeautiful piece you could create! Bonnie McCaffery's bookgives you step-by-step instructions, VERY clearly written,to guide just about anyone to completion of a wall hangingshe can be justifiably proud of! At the Mid-AppalachianQuilters workshop, I saw folks who were somewhat tentativeand a bit scared at first create the MOST beautiful worksyou can imagine. . . and, you can too!

This is Ms. McCaffrey's second book on using this technique. She writes in a clear and understandable manner. The directions are presented well and include a chapter on color and design. The book is filled with many wonderful and inspiring pictures of Ms. McCaffrey's quilts and those of her students. Included are step-by-step, easy to follow, instructions to make four different quilts.What I found most important was a list of resources in case I was unable to find supplies locally. I would highly recommend this book to both beginners and accomplished quilters. These quilts are fun projects to make and everyone wanting to try this method will end up with a beautiful example.

Bonnie Lyn McCaffery's new book,Fantasy Floral Quilts, is the complete guide to her exciting new technique. Bonnie lays out a logical sequence of steps leading to the creation of one of a kind quilts. The possibilities are only hinted at by the dozens of full color photos of quilts made by Bonnie and her students.Some quilting books are meant to assist in the making of a specific quilt. If all the steps are followed exactly, the resulting quilt will look like the illustration. That is not what this book does. If the steps which McCaffery so clearly lays out, are followed, the result will be as unique as the maker wishes. For those who are less daring, Bonnie includes a nine-block sampler and her wonderful fairy pattern.It is all there: how to choose the best silk flowers,color and design possibilities, dealing with the background, creating branches and/or stems, the latest in embillishments, and hints on the quilting process. This book is both inspirational and enlightening.