A Quilt Block Challenge: Vintage Revisited by Mary Kerr, with a foreword by Pepper Cory, is one of the latest books published by Schiffer Publishing in 2010.
To create this book, Mary Kerr asked 22 of her quilt friends to create new artistic quilts using vintage blocks as points of departure. The book is a colorful tribute to all of the resulting quilts. Each time one looks through the book, another quilt catches one’s eye. Provided with each photo is a little summary of the design decisions made by the artist.
The book is fun to peruse to see the new spin that each artist brought to otherwise cast-off blocks. All of us who have been quilting for awhile have blocks and unfinished quilt tops that we despair of ever finishing. They are begun and left because some new project took our attention, or they were just a sample from a class, or we didn’t get around to buying enough backing fabric or perhaps ran out of one supply or another. It is nice to think that someone might come along in the future and want to “do something” with a textile that is a UFO (unfinished object).
The camaraderie among these friends is apparent in the book. Many of them are fellow quilt appraisers who have lots of experience in seeing vintage and antique quilts. It is clear that they had fun with this ingenious project envisioned by Mary Kerr.
Mary, congratulation on achieving your goal of completing this book! It is sure to inspire other quilting groups to attempt to do something similar, perhaps as a guild challenge. Two thumbs up on this one! Thanks for sharing the fun with us!
Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications
