Alethea Ballard

“Dream Chair Quilts” by Alethea Ballard contains patterns for seven different wall-hangings that can be mixed and matched, combining to create either a small or large quilt. Dream Chair Quilts is a fun book, allowing you to make a masterpiece of your own favorite fabrics and embellishments.
Ballard gives examples of quilts in a gallery, but encourages you to use what you love and to go a little wild in your choices. She explains that you could coordinate your wall hanging with your household furnishings, but you will be much happier with your quilt, if you choose what you love.
This is a wonderful, fun book by Ballard, and is for any quilter, beginner or an intermediate quilter that can add more of their own ideas and embellishments!
http://www.ctpub.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=2007… (mehr)

Maverick Quilts by Alethea Ballard is a new book with refreshing ideas. Ballard writes this book about making quilts using large-scale fabrics, medium-scale fabrics, and novelty fabrics. I have a large stash of fabrics that I use to make blocks and quilts, and I have many of these types of fabric in that stash. Usually they are a fabric that is too big to make much with, or fabrics that have medium scale, that don’t look well together, my favorite fabrics that area just made to look at (Well, aren’t they?), or novelty prints that I have picked up and don’t know where to use them.
Maverick Quilts covers all of these delimmas and more. Ballard’s book is a good reference book for beginning quilters, and also c0vers ideas on improving your quilting skills. Color and highlights in your quilt are covered. Curved piecing techniques are also here.
Many projects in this book are given, and as I see it, if you ever repeat the same pattern with different fabrics, the quilt would never look like a pattern copy. I received many new ideas on what to do with my stash, and can hardly wait to complete some with some of my problem fabrics!
http://www.ctpub.com/productdetails.cfm?sku=10790… (mehr)