Day 2 Blog Tour
Review of "Bursting Into Bloom"
Designed and Quilted by Connie Kauffman (pg.21)
When I saw the quilt I was to review I was thrilled. I think this pattern is fun and cheerful.
Many of the dies necessary to make the projects in Mix & Match Quilts are included in the AccuQuilt GO! 12" Finished Block Set. The GO! Rectangle (3 1/2" x 6 1/2") , GO! Funky Flower Die and the GO! 2 1/2" Strip Cutter Die were the dies used to make "Bursting Into Bloom."
I think it is wonderful that all the dimensions for each die is given in the book as well as the Funky Flower template. So for those who do not have a AccuQuilt GO! or Sizzix Westminster Fabric Cutter you can still make these quilts using your choice of rulers that will cut the necessary shapes and the templates supplied in this book.
I did not make the "Bursting Into Bloom" quilt however I did read the instructions several times. The instructions were not as clear and I think they could be and I'm not sure a beginning quilter would have understood some of the terminology and directions.
Here are a few examples:
"Die Cutting Instructions"
"1. Cut one 7 1/2" by fabric width strip from each of five coordinating bright prints and fan-fold 4 1/2" wide. Die-cut eight H rectangles from each strip."
I'm not sure a beginning quilter would know what a fan-fold is and a diagram or photo would be much clearer. Perhaps adding that you would have a total of 40 rectangles when finished would be helpful too. The other thing that I found confusing was referring to the rectangle die as H. While on page three of the book all the dies are described in depth, a beginning quilter may not have noticed they were also labeled with an alphabet letter. When I first saw the instructions I wondered what H was referring to so I looked back through the beginning of the book. The dies are even labeled that way on my website but it was not readily clear to me.
The book shows photos of the shapes that the dies cut and I think it would have been clearer if a beginning quilter actually saw a photo of the die too.
Later in the instructions the letters X and Y appear along with other letters. At first I thought I was missing something and I began searching page three for X and Y. Then I thought that the X and Y might refer to X and Y axis. So I looked at the quilt and thought to myself, "there is no way they could be referring to the X and Y axis...that makes no sense." So I looked to the end of the instructions and noticed on some of the diagrams there were small alphabet letters that referred to rows. I think it may be helpful to tell people in the beginning that the letters would be referencing rows on diagrams that would be shown on the next page.
That was my experience with reading through the pattern. Stop over to Vickie's blog at Spun Sugar Quilts and read her review of the "Bed of Roses" pattern also being reviewed today.
You can visit Tonya at Tonya's Sewing Room Blog and Jacki at Canton Village Quilt Works Blog tomorrow and read their reviews as well as find out who else is reviewing the patterns in this book on Thursday.
Everyone is different and I look forward to reading about their experiences with the patterns. The quilts and projects are beautiful and I think the concept is definitely great for a beginning quilter.
Smiles,
Kelly
