Product Description

•Step-by-step directions make it easy to create stunning, unusual quilts

• Photos of Italy’s glories add inspiration

Let the beauty of the Italian Renaissance inspire crafters to create eight magnificent quilts based on classic mosaics. There innovative projects use familiar shapes in new combinations—clearly explained with step-by-step directions, photos, and illustrations—for stunning results. Every quilter will want to travel to Renaissance Italy with Bella Bella Quilts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #146435 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781571203045
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Nora McMeeking, the granddaughter ot two seamstresses, teaches quiltmaking. Her quilts have been exhibited in the US and internationally. She lives in Santa Barbara, CA

Customer Reviews

An inspirational book
Firstly, this book is probably not for the novice quilter--there are some easier designs, and suggestions for simplifying patterns, but the directions do assume a general knowledge of the craft.

However, there's a lot that any quilter can learn from this book; it's filled with beautiful quilts with interesting designs taken from Italian mosaics. In fact, it's also loaded with pictures of the original mosaics that inspired the quiltds, and a short history lesson on the origin of the mosaic patterns.

Aside from the inspiration of just paging through looking at pretty pictures, I found a lot to admire in the thought Norah McMeeking obviously put into this book. Each section begins with a nice photo of the quilt and then some helpful design suggestions--ways to vary the pattern and make it your own. There's also several line drawings of possible design/color variations to help you visualize your options. Then comes a list of fabric requirements and directions, including illustrations of any special/new techniques and lastly, suggestions for quilting methods that would look good. All the templates and foundations are presented in a pullout section at the end of the book, which is so much handier than trying to trace them off of book pages.

All in all, this a well conceived and well executed quilt book. In all likelihood I won't attempt to recreate one of these quilts, but I do see myself using bits and pieces in my own quilts. It's a good book to add to my reference library.

I Dream of Finding Quilt Books like Bella Bella Quilts
The quilts featured in this book are amazing. They look intimidating and complicated to construct, but they are not difficult to make. An intermediate quilter familiar with paper piecing and sewing curved seams could make any of the Bella Bella mosaic quilts. I made the Carnevale quilt featured on page forty-eight. It's now one of my favorite quilts. It is stunning and impresses everyone who sees it (if they only knew how easy it was to piece together!).

There was a lot of prep work involved. Lots of fabric cutting and preparing paper foundations and templates, nothing unusual. After that, it was like any other piecing project. Just sew in numerical order then press and trim. And so on. You don't need to know anything about geometry. Just be sure your templates and foundations are absolutely accurate when you make them and your quilt will lie flat.

This book is awesome. In addition to Carnevale, I plan to make other Bella Bella quilts.

*UPDATE*: I am now tackling Venice Rose on page 42. Gorgeous, gorgeous quilt. I do wish the author would have included templates for the individual fabric pieces that make up this quilt. Though it does contain pullout foundations for the projects, templates for individual fabric pieces are not in the book (nor in the foundations that are sold separately). It has taken me over three hours of tracing, adding half an inch seam allowance to all sides of each piece, and cutting templates for thirty-six pieces. If the author writes another book, and I hope she does, she should consider including pre-measured templates for individual fabric pieces. Quilters really appreciate them, trust me!

After making Carnevale, I purchased the paper foundations that accompany the book. WOW! I wish I had bought them before making my first Bella Bella quilt. I highly recommend them. They'll save me hours of work on this and future projects.

Not for a beginner!
I have this book and the companion patterns that go with it. This book is not for a beginner! I have already found errors in the instructions for the quilts. The companion pattens are misleading. The are not all the patterns to complete a quilt they are the larger patterns. It states on the front "no copying, no tracing, no taping", so far I have had to copy patterns, trace inner rings on to freezer paper and tape patterens together to make a larger size. I would recommed reading the insructions prior to making any quilt in this book. The quilts are gorgeous and I would love to make all of them but I am hesitant, as I have had others tell me that they have found errors in other quilts in the book also.