Sunday, April 12, 2015

New York Beauty

I love books and I love quilts...so not surprisingly books about quilts make me very happy.

And even better is when the book has wonderful photos and lots of great information.  (OK, I admit the first three times through I mainly looked at the pictures!)

Bill Volckering has been collecting New York Beauty quilts (which go under a wide variety of styles and names but for simplicity sake I will use the NYB name) for years.   He had compiled what is most likely the largest collection of that style.  He also has a degree in art and photography - all of which comes through in this book where he did all of the photos.

Can you tell I love the photos!  You don't just see the piecing but you can see all the quilting.  As a hand quilter this means a lot!

His collection spans almost all regions of the U.S.A. and from the 1850's to current day.  I love books that really go into a specific design and really shows the variety that different quilters can take to make it their own.

It is a great historical take on this pattern but it also has patterns for those of us who get inspired and find our fingers itching to try a NYB for ourselves.  Since it was published by Quiltmania it isn't surprising that they went for the template style favored by hand-quilters.  The only two NYB's I've made have been paperpieced but who knows...I may take the challenge.

So this has found a place on one of my quilt history shelves...once I'm through looking at the photos of course!

5 comments:

Karen said...

I love the photos in the quilt history books. Especially good photos. I was not aware of this particular book. I think you like it!

Frog Quilter said...

Where did you get the book? Thanks

Janet O. said...

I love New York Beauty quilts, but I'm afraid I would have to paper piece if I made one.
Looks like a great book!

Tonya Ricucci said...

yay! I admit I haven't bought it. I have his self-published book already.

Bill Volckening said...

Somehow I missed this blog when it was posted, but thank you. I am so happy you're enjoying the book. The photography was important to me. I wanted to show quilting detail in the full view images of the quilts, not just in the detail photos. Not a lot of quilt books do that, so I like to think of it as something different and special I could offer to quilt lovers and quilters.