Book Review: 1000 Quilt Inspirations

1000 Quilt Inspirations: Colorful and Creative Designs for Traditional, Modern, and Art Quilts1000 Quilt Inspirations: Colorful and Creative Designs for Traditional, Modern, and Art Quilts by Sandra Sider

I wanted to like this book more than I did. The promise of it is high, but the actual execution didn’t live up to its promise. There is very little text in this book. It is mostly images, which do provide inspiration, but there was a vague dissatisfaction running through my experience reading this book. Part of it had to do with the selection process. Part of it had to do with whether I was looking at the full works vs. details.

The book starts with a table of contents. The table of contents shows how the book is arranged: “traditional designs”, “modern designs”, “pictorial designs”, and “abstract and conceptual art quilt designs”. The images start right away with a whole page of quilts opposite the table of contents.

The text is primarily located in the Introduction (pg.8-9), which gives an overview of quiltmaking history, groups and fads from the mid-19th century to the present. The Introduction is short. I found it to include some gross generalizations. There were also some sections that I did not understand. Either sentences were too vague or the words were put together in a way that did not make sense. For example, Sider writes “Modern quilters, such as members of the Modern Quilt Guild, design mainly with solid colors and often adapt traditional patterns in innovative ways, finding their inspiration in every aspect of today’s quilts” (pg.8). Some of that sentence is true, but it leaves me with a lot of questions. Are members of the Modern Quilt Guild the only modern quilters? I know people making quilts right now. Are all quiltmakers making quilts right modern quilters? Also, I have no idea what “…finding their inspiration in every aspect of today’s quilts” (pg.8) means. Aren’t modern quilters making today’s quilts? Do they get inspiration from themselves? Does this sentence refer to Instagram? These examples might be semantics, but demonstrates the possible lack of editing. I think this introduction, being the only significant text in the book could have been fleshed out a little more. The book would have benefited from a less generalized view of the quiltmaking to introduce the quilts.

200+ quilts in the traditional designs section follow. The format for the rest of the book varies slightly, but is mostly 4 quilts per page. In a lot of respects it is difficult to determine whether the reader is looking at a detail or a full quilt. There is very little information about the quilts next to the image beyond what is listed in the introduction. Each image lists a maker, but no quilt name, size or any other information.

The images are stellar. The quilting is clearly visible as are the fabrics and construction.

Modern Designs begin on page 69 with no additional fanfare or introduction. Most artists have more than one design included (or perhaps details of one quilt?). I recognized very few names from those listed and was surprised to see postcards (pg.73) included in the Modern Designs section. I would have classified a lot of the quilts included in the Modern Designs section as art quilts, especially given the description of what modern quilters are making.

The book ends with an image directory (pg.300-311). Names of quilts, techniques and sizes are included as well as some information on who took the photo. There is also an artist directory (pg.312-319), which provides a list of all the images attributed to an artist as well as their website, if available. The best part of this book was randomly selecting artist websites and looking at their work.

If you are looking for an overview of 100+ years of quiltmaking with inspiration and explanation, this book falls short. However, there is no doubt that the imagery in this book is beautiful. The author and publisher worked hard to make the images high quality. For the variety of images alone, this book is worth buying.

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Author: JayeL

Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.

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