Marvelous Miniatures

Although I am not a quilter this book covers techniques and information for all who sew.

Sometimes you order a book online and are not sure you will like it because you can't really look at it. But this book exceeded my expectations. I want to begin making miniature quilts and this is a SUPER GREAT! book to help get started . It takes you from beginning to end and is easily read and understood. I can't say enough about this book. It is great!!!

This is an absolute must have if you are going to do miniatures. It assumes that you already know how to do basic quilting. I Love IT! It has so many tips on working with tiny pieces, applique, and narrow bias.

After peeking inside (don't you just love it when quilt book publishers have enough faith in their contents to let you see first, before purchase?) I was sure I'd like the book, even though it is a hard-cover. Okay, I prefer paperback's but for this one, I'll make an exception -- at least until they print a pb version. The book is superb, and that's a word I don't use frequently, especially when referring to my quilt books. Frankly, over the years I've bought way too many that turned out to be "not for me" or plain old boring. I'll admit to preferring the newer books with lots of color photographs -- and I do have a partiality to decent paper, well-bound books that won't have pages falling out if I sneeze in the vicinity, et al. So, I'm "selective" (that's a nice way to say picky, er, nit-picky) ... And, I like little things -- so this book Marvelous Miniatures (Rodale's Successful Quilting Library) had appeal from the get-go. From the beginning to the very end, this book is a pure delight. Open the book, and the end pages (normally blank) show an "Anatomy of a Quilt" so right away even a novice will have a clear understanding of terminology. Inside the illustrations are profuse, in color, clearly explained, and *helpful* -- plus the tools are so cool! Okay, I'm a gizmo-holic, and these appeal to my sense of "ooh, I need that too" though truth to tell, there aren't *that* many toys, er, tools that I don't have already! Aside: the author does not promote one brand either -- you've all see the books no doubt that are so clearly trumped by ruler companies, that double as "informative" but really leave a feeling of "I paid perfectly good money to be spammed"?! Ugh. Marvelous Miniatures doesn't fall into that trap... I just opened the book (pages 40-41) and see scissors, a 1"x6" generic ruler, a rotary cutter, Mini Cut & Press cutting board/iron pad, one of those miniature irons, and a green cutting mat -- the 8x12" one. Advice: sniff your cutting pad before purchase. If it stinks in the store it'll stink at home MUCH WORSE. Ask me how I know that! And no amount of fresh air will cure it either. (mutters at self for going cheap/and getting exactly what I paid for) But I digress... and back to Marvelous Miniatures... the pages explain/show, give measurements for, patterns, and thorough instructions for success. It explains how to mini the full sized quilts we may have. The book offers specifics -- not just a shrink this to these dimensions. There are tips too ... little things that we'd learn in practice anyway, but definitely of the nice to know first variety. Included are sections on Foundation Piecing and English Paper Piecing for those that are so inclined. Not my thing, but I mention it anyway for those that do prefer that. One thing I liked is that there is so much variety and information within these pages, and frankly, my biggest problem will be where to start. They are all that good. Everything from string quilts to mini craz