Great Sets

There is some overlap between this book and the author's earlier title, Setting Solutions. If you are only going to purchase one of the two, this one is more structured and the ideas are more fully developed. That said, there is enough original material in each book that if you love one of the titles, you will likely love the other as well! This book contains surprisingly successful solutions to the following setting challenges: - a set of BOM blocks that vary in size - sometimes by 1" or more - an incomplete set of blocks for a quilt that no longer interests you - a collection of mis-matched orphan blocks of various sizes (yes, there are solutions in this book for these blocks!) - a set of blocks in a color scheme that you do not care for (yes, you can set the blocks so as to "lose" the original color scheme!) and so on. Some of these solutions involve setting your blocks inside another, larger block such as wind-blown square. This is very inspiring. Just think - you could do this with churn dash, lady of the lake or any other blocks that have a large central square. This book is not only inspiring it is very PRACTICAL. Sharon shows various ways to overcome size discrepancies - including "invisible" methods that truly are nearly invisible - at first glance you would not know the blocks were not all the same size. The settings that "lose" the original color scheme are simply amazing. I would never have believed that such designs could look good but they do! If you feel guilty about your orphans, ufo's or unused block of the month collections, this book will help you make wonderful completed quilts from them.

This book is terrific for design ideas, or figuring out what to do with blocks from a swap or blocks you've made, but don't want to put into a standard straight or diagonal setting. Almost any setting from this book will enhance your blocks - Sharyn's ideas are all so wonderful, you'll be scrounging up old blocks to play with, and give them new life in the process.

This book impressed me for several reasons. Bascially, the book empowers you to take very simple blocks an make fantastic quilts. Think of the stacks of blocks that you have from block of the months, experimenting, or from UFO that you may never finish. This book will give you so many ideas as to how you can create your own masterpiece from your blocks. When you flip through the book, you see that it is well organized into chapters that give you Sharon's different roadmaps. I am so looking forward to going back and studying each chapter to determine what I want to do with my blocks. One theme throughout the book shows how you can take the same plain sawtooth blocks and create totally different layouts. These illustrations really opened my minds to the endless possibilities (I know this phase is over done, but it does fit here). Throughout the book, she takes you through the process step by step. Also, in the back of the book, the author includes many tables to assist with the math in making your ideas a reality. I am very impressed with this book! It gave me so many ideas that I had trouble sleeping last night!!