Book review: Allie Aller’s Crazy Quilting

To my delight a copy of Allie Aller’s Crazy Quilting just before I left so I was able to read this book, and write this on the plane!

Allie Aller’s Crazy Quilting is subtitled Modern Piecing & Embellishing Techniques for Joyful Stitching. The noticeable key word is modern, as right from when you open the book, even in the acknowledgements Allie pays attention to the modern world including online resources. Although deeply influenced by the tradition there is no harking back to the nostalgic world of Victorian sentimentality. Instead Allie focuses on contemporary piecing techniques, creating your own fabrics on a home ink jet printer, contemporary products like waste canvas, iron on ink jet transfer sheets, and fused Angelina.

After covering the basics of what is needed in the way of fabric and equipment Allie covers a number of piecing techniques including curved piecing. The next step is to embellish the surface of the block and Allie  demonstrates embellishing with ribbon, rick rack, angelina, and  beads. There is all sorts of useful advice, tips and techniques even how to attach items that dont have a hole in them, to your quilt.

This is one of those rare books that can help two types of readers. Any new hand to crazy quilting will learn much and feel capable attempting crazy quilting particularly since there a number of projects included in the book. Experienced crazy quilters will be well rewarded as the focus on contemporary techniques means that it is not a re-hash of standard techniques and old hands will be particularly inspired by the gallery pieces sourced from crazy quilters all over the globe.
Allie is a friend but even if I did not know her I would not hesitate to recommend it.