Alex Anderson (1) (1955–)

This is a lovely book, chock full of information--but not the ultimate reference its title would suggest. It's apparently a compendium of several smaller books she had written earlier, and it shows--each section is well-done and interesting, but lacks cohesiveness and an overarching sense of how it all comes together.

Unfortunately for me, it's therefore not nearly as well-suited to a beginner as one might think from the title. I personally know nothing about quilting, but as I'm learning how to use my sewing machine this summer, thought this might be a fun hobby to pick up. Sadly there are great swathes of necessary information missing from this book--I can supplement by reading other books, or googling things, or taking a class, but it would have been nice to have a step-by-step "this is how you make a quilt" section, rather than assuming a lot of prior knowledge.

For instance, I think you sew small shapes of fabric to other small shapes and then connect the result to yet other small shapes until you have a block (a square, usually), which repeats, but whether there is a seam allowance left on the block to connect it to other blocks and so on is never really stated. As an absolute beginner, I feel I have to do a lot of guessing here.

(And the several pages of "types" of fabric patterns are pretty, but unnecessary).
… (mere)