Rags to Rainbows: Traditional Quilting, Patchwork, and Applique from Around the World

In response to the current vogue for ethnic style, this book on patchwork and quilting extends its range beyond the familiar designs of North America and Britain, to draw on the rich traditions of the rest of the world – Africa, Australia, India, Japan and even Polynesia. The book contains 18 projects, each of which addresses a particular style of patchwork or quilting, differentiated by method and derivation. Each has a spread showing examples of the tradition in question, followed by practical photographic step-by-step instructions for making a quilt derived from that tradition. All the quilts are designed especially to be made by machine, so that the months of painstaking hand-stitching needed to create the heirlooms of the past can be reduced to days or even hours.