Double Wedding Ring Quilts-Traditions Made Modern: Full-Circle Sketches from Life

by Victoria Findlay Wolfe

Overview

Get ready for new adventures in conventional piecing with celebrated quilter Victoria Findlay Wolfe. Create stunning Double Wedding Ring quilts with breathtaking innovations on the classic pattern. With full-size patterns for 10 quilts, the book will teach you the Double Wedding Ring basics. After you’ve mastered curved foundation piecing, try your hand at Victoria’s unique fabric slashing and “Made-Fabric” methods—it’s easier than you think! You’ll feel liberated as you improvise on her designs, with full instruction for some quilts and others that invite your creative discovery. Read the stories that inspired each of Victoria’s designs, and then take inspiration from the artist at work in her studio, with photography of her creative process and 3 bonus quilts to jump start your own art.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617450266
Publisher:	C&T Publishing / Stash Books
Publication date:	02/01/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.80(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Victoria Findlay Wolfe—author, painter, photographer, and award-winning quilter—learned to sew and quilt at age4. Victoria organizes a large quilting charity project and is active in several guilds. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and their daughter. bumblebeansinc.com

Table of Contents

Foreword Intro Double-Edged Love You Are Here Greatest Possible Trust Bright Lights, Big City Retro Poly Mod Strings of Florid Blooms Leona A Summer’s Day Lace Remembering Christmas Past Farm Girl Iris by Night Luminous Views Wrap Up (Final Thoughts) The Basics Basic Double Wedding Ring Construction Basic Made-Fabric and Slashing Techniques Basic Paper Piecing About the Author

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/17/2014
Although boasting a fine-arts degree, Wolfe (15 Minutes of Play) writes accessibly about her double wedding ring quilts as if she’s jotting bread-and-butter letters. Her words are warm and nostalgic as she remembers arriving in New York City with $200 to her name after practically running from the Minnesota farm of her girlhood. But she found that she never quite left that farm behind, for her quilting grandmother becomes her inspiration. “Everything started with this quilt,” she says of “Double Edged Love,” a best-of-show winner at the first national conference of the Modern Quilt Guild. Embedded within her breezy reminiscences are solid suggestions for 10 projects: besides “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” Wolfe offers fabric requirements and cutting instructions for the melons and arcs, as she names parts of the wedding ring pattern, and also additional creative possibilities, laid out like yardage; hints for development of craft; and a list of “ideas carried over” from quilt to quilt. Wolfe is boldly mining her heritage. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Master curved foundation piecing and get inspired by Victoria's original fabric slashing techniques, 13 quilts and glimpses of her studio.

Quiltmaker Magazine

What if? That is the question posed by author and quilt artist Victoria Findlay Wolfe in her book Double Wedding Ring Quilts – Traditions Made Modern: Full-Circle Sketches from Life. What if is the question anyone wanting to strike out on their own and create their own designs should ask themselves. What if I take a traditional block like the Double Wedding ring and cut it into different pieces? What if I create my own fabric from scraps? What if I just change one thing? You may not want to start out making a Double Wedding Ring quilt but you will certainly learn ways to step out of your box with Victoria’s “15 Minutes of Play” exercise. I found this book full of creative inspiration…steps you can take to change the way you look at and think of quilt designing. There are 13 projects in the book all working back to the Double Wedding Ring block but all created using different methods for a very modern take on a traditional block. Paper piecing, sewing curves and fabric slashing to create your own “Made-Fabric” are some of the techniques taught in this book. Instructions are clearly written and color photos abound. The included patterns are printed at 100% so no need to resize.

The Applique Society Newsletter

We already admire our former cover girl’s talent and creativity, and just knew we’d love the designs in her new book, but we are gratified to find there’s so much more. This is no quick-flip! It’s a hearty tome, full of personal, poignant stories. Victoria writes: “In this book…we will look at a traditional platform to begin with and see how we can push the limits, place a bit more of ourselves into the quilt, add our story, and push our skills into a new realm, while making personal connections that relate to our past.” We can’t put it better than that! The book’s 13 quilts build upon each other in a way that’s clearly explained and invite our creative selves to come out and play, to be challenged, to look at fabric or pattern through the lenses of our own lives and memories.
This is creative dynamite, blowing up preconceived ideas of what a pattern “should” look like. You need this book in your library, friend!

May/June 2015 Generation Q Magazine

Victoria Findlay-Wolfe is a New York-based, award-winning quilter, fabric designer, teacher and author, and the founder of the New York City Metro Area Modern Quilt Guild. She was born and raised on a farm in Minnesota and grew up surrounded by quilts made by her grandmother. In this book, Victoria shares 13 modern versions of Double Wedding Ring quilts (including a Christmas quilt), the stories behind them and the techniques needed to get started. If you love modern takes on traditional quilt designs, don’t miss this tome!

Issue 172 Down Under Textiles

01/01/2015
"Double-Edged Love," Wolfe's modern take on the classic double wedding ring quilt won Best in Show at the inaugural QuiltCon modern quilting show, and her second book explores her process for making quilts using elements of this well-known design. "Double-Edged Love" is the first pattern in the book, and quilters who wondered how Wolfe took the double wedding ring and turned it into something fresh need wonder no more—it's a combination of her trademark "made fabric," creative fabric choices, and thoughtful use of solids to have the rings stand out. Each pattern is introduced with a short essay in which Wolfe describes her creative process and inspiration, from fabric choices to decisions about how to quilt the finished quilt top. Wolfe's two primary inspirations are her grandmother's quilts, which made use of scrap fabric in a bright palette and urban living (Wolfe makes her home in New York City). These motivations lead to some unexpected choices, including a quilt top made from double-knit polyester, a fabric that most modern quilters would eschew. VERDICT The double wedding ring is a design that many quilters, both traditional and modern, aspire to, and Wolfe's exploration of the modern side of this classic will draw quilters in. However, this book is more about enlightenment and process than the actual practice of assembling a double wedding ring quilt—the "basics" section is relegated to a skimpy appendix that glosses over the information needed to successfully duplicate Wolfe's designs.

Library Journal