Make Your First Quilt Alex Anderson Book Review

Ohmygosh! Cutest book EVER. Oh wait, hold on, a few details first.

Make Your First Quilt with Alex Anderson Beginners Step by Step Visual Guide. C&T Publications $14.95 (book) , $9.99 (ebook), 48 pages 5.25” x 9”

Alex having fun with husband John

Now back to our regularly scheduled book review. You may note that the size of this book is, first of all, listed. Looooook at the size 5.25” x 9” it’s cute, it’s portable and better yet, it’s spiral bound. Yeeehaw! A book for beginners that fits in your purse or other carrying device and isn’t heavy at all. It’s spiral bound so the pages will lay flat on your dining room table as you begin that first quilt, or 12th as one does.

Arkansas Crossroads block by Alex Anderson photo courtesy C&T Publications

Alex chose the Arkansas Crossroads block, a simple easy to piece block that gives the new quilter a good skill set: choosing light, medium and dark fabric, cutting squares, and making half square triangles. Bonus! the photos in the book show right and left handed cutting technique, quilters and quilt teachers alike will love this, as new quilters can see how fabric, ruler, and rotary cutter should be positioned.

“Quiltmaking is a journey both men and women have loved for generations. We all started in the same place, so there’s no need to feel intimidated by a lack of experience.” 

The books offers 12 different settings for the blocks with options for borders, so there is a lot of room for the new quilt maker to have this first quilt be their own. As a teacher this helps the new quilt maker become more confident in their own quilterly decision making skills. Stage whisper, if you’re a new quilt maker “You got this!”

There are simple charts included that cover different sizes of quilts and how much fabric you’ll need, how many pieces to cut and blocks to make. Alex really makes this journey simple covering the quilt from beginning to end. She encourages grid quilting, the simplest solution for every quilter. Simple, Easy, Fun. What could be better?

Quilt. Sew. Live. Breathe.

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