Title: Quilters Playtime: Games With Fabrics
Author: Dianne S. Hire
Publisher: American Quilter’s Society
Pages: 127
Publication Date: 2004
Suggested Retail Price: $24.95
ISBN #: 1-57432-826-3


Review By: Dori Hawks

If you want to have fun with fabrics, deviating from the “rules” but still keep the elements of good design in check, you will have fun playing with Dianne’s quilt games. Dianne uses wonderfully bright fabrics in her “Quilters Playtime” by showing you a different way to play the traditional children’s games of Hopscotch, Tic-Tac-Toe, Pin The Tail On The Donkey, Musical Chairs, Pick-Up-Sticks, Tiddly Winks, Ring Around The Rosy, to have loads of quilting fun.

Just recently I was privileged to be in one of Dianne’s classes, and also observe her Quilters Playtime class at a Sunshine State Quilt Association Symposium at Daytona Beach, Florida. Her class participants were having so much fun and making great class projects.

As Dianne tells us “the purpose of Playtime is to free your creativity via liberating games at the sewing machine and on your design wall.” With her book and in her class her students do just that. They have fun, freeing up some preconceived notions about what quilting is about.

She begins by helping you set up your Playroom (your studio) with suggestions about lighting, work surfaces, equipment and fabrics to choose. (“Use only fabrics that excite you. Use fabrics that make your heart jump a beat or two.”) How to play doing a ‘Mock-up” is explored, and even a “game plan for ironing.”

Even if you are a traditional quilter, I suggest you read her book, follow her “lessons”, and broaden your experiences in Quiltmaking. It will even help you in your traditional quilt design, making you stretch your ideas and make your quilts more exciting.

The instructions are so well organized, even as far as dividing the chapters for each quilt game into sections, “Object of the Game,” “Game Plan,” “Your Move,” and “Winning,” that they are fun and very, very helpful to completing your project.

This is a fantastic book and as Dianne says, “play your hunches, be impulsive, and find the fun.” Quilters Playtime is well worth the money and your time. Buy it for your personal and your guild library.

Look for this book at your favorite quilt shop!

Publisher:
American Quilter’s Society
PO Box 3290
Paducah, KY 42002-3290
1-800-626-5420

www.AQSquilt.com



©2005 Dori Hawks
www.theQuilterCommunity.com