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! Down Under Textiles, Issue 172 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! Generation Q Magazine, May/June 2015 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 patterns, 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. Publishers Weekly, 11/17/14 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
