Flower Pounding: Quilt Projects for All Ages

You may be wondering what in the world "Flower Pounding" is. Put simply, it is the process of transferring plant pigments to specially treated fabric via pounding with a hammer to create floral imagery reminiscent of water color painting. When I read through the book I was amazed at the beautiful projects within and wanted one for my very own.The book has a wonderful alphabetic index of common garden flowers in the back and all of the gallery photographs list the flowers used in the projects for reference which I found to be very helpful. Along with detailed visual instructions for every step of the process from fabric treatment through pounding to completion with outlining, there are numerous photographs in the book of scenes created by the authors, Ann Frischkorn and Amy Sandrin. They have also included instructions for nine projects complete with quilting how-tos and templates to get you started. And, lest you think that this a project limited to the spring flower season, there are examples using fall flowers as well as poinsettias.The authors glibly suggest that once you try flower pounding, you will never look at flowers the same. I must say that they are right in this assessment. Just the other day, I was at Costco and I eyeballed the fresh flower bouquets as I walked by. But, I was not thinking how pretty they were, no, I was wondering how they would look pounded! Try it and see if you don't start thinking the same way!

A friend introduced me to Flower Pounding. We are having a great time with this. The authors give a lot of great tips on their website. They also state that your Flower Pounding works of art are dry-cleanable. This is great news! We have also tried color copying our poundings to transfer paper and having them ironed onto t-shirts. It worked great. Now they truly are washable. I don't see why you couldn't iron them onto a quilt block too. The possibilities are endless with this technique. Thanks to Amy and Ann for making my summer and my quilting a lot more interesting.

I was fortunate to take a flower pounding class with Amy. It was such a delight to have the author demonstrate just how easy and beautiful this process is. By the end of class I had made my own gorgeous print. Everyone was delighted by the beautiful results and had a blast making their work of art. You will never again look at flowers the same way! (Irises are my favorite...so far.) In fact, you'll be itching to pound every petal you can get your hands on. When I got home that day my husband and 6 year old son asked to try their hands at it. I'm embarassed to admit it, but their prints were even prettier than mine. My son especially loved this project and can't wait to get more flowers. Kudos to Amy and Ann for creating a sensational new way to make breathtaking quilts the whole family can be involved in. (And for those of you wanting to take a class like I did, check out patchworktwins.com for their class listing.)

FLOWER POUNDING is a beautiful book of quilt projects that make you want to run right out to the craft store and start buying all the materials you need. The directions are precise and make it look easy to create lovely quilts using flowers. My biggest problem is trying to decide which of the gorgeous quilts to make first. What an outstanding job Ann Frischkorn and Amy Sandrin have done in creating this book! This is a quilting book I'd recommend to everyone, beginners and old pros.

The whole idea of making quilts with flowers sounded strange to me at first, but once I tried it, I was hooked. Flower pounding is fun and easy and this book gives easy to follow step-by-step instructions and lots of great ideas. I especially liked all the little tip boxes sprinkled throughout the book. Whether you're new to quilting or a pro,you'll love this.