Eva A. Larkin
I’m glad you stopped by. I’ve just published my first book, Free-Motion Quilting Made Easy, 186 Designs from 8 Simple Shapes! It was released in February by That Patchwork Place and the reviews have been very encouraging. I thought I would share some of them with you.
Reviews
The Quilter Magazine, July 2009
"Many quilters are inhibited by free-motion quilting and are unsure of ways to improve their techniques. In this practical guide, Eva A. Larkin, identifies specific skills that will help those interested in free-motion quilting gain confidence. In particular, she isolates three areas to focus on: thread tension, controlling stitch length, and quilting in smaller sections. The first part of the book concentrates on these skills and offers specific exercises, breaking them down for beginners to understand or of skilled quilters to practice. The bulk of the book is dedicated to practical application. Eva outlines eight basic shapes, including diamonds, loops, ovals, triangles and others, then demonstrates how to combine them into a wide array of quilting designs. A large gallery section depicts numerous combination ideas, 186 total, all created from the eight basic shapes. Beginners and experienced quilters alike will find guidance and inspiration in this comprehensive guide to free-motion quilting."
"Eva Larkin's approach to free motion quilting is very much based on the fact that if you focus on quilting the area under our needle rather than the whole quilt "you'll feel more relaxed and in control". By concentrating on small areas (she recommends starting with 4 1/2" squares), and learning to quilt just eight simple shapes, she demonstrates all the various combinations of these shapes to produce 186 designs. She includes a useful section on getting your tension and stitch length right followed by some warm up exercises to get you limbered up. The book includes black and white illustrations with directional arrows so that you can clearly see how the quilting design can be achieved fluidly. I liked her use of red and green dots to suggest when to pause and where to start. I particularly liked her inclusion of a trouble shooting section - a great help for quilters who don't have an expert readily at hand! I would recommend this book for anyone who is struggling to feel in control of their quilting as it is sure to build your confidence.
Australian Homespun Magazine Blog, April 2009, By Megan Fisher
Many quiltmakers would love to be able to machine quilt their quilts – machine quilting at home on a domestic sewing machine is faster than hand quilting and cheaper than sending quilt tops to longarm machinists. It also allows quiltmakers to complete every step involved in making their quilt. Eva Larkin set out to teach herself the secrets not only of machine quilting, but also of creating quilting designs that didn’t need to be marked on the quilt top and weren’t just overall meandering or stitching in the ditch. Within a year, she was teaching others what she’d learned, and this book captures much of what she has passed on in those workshop classes.
The book is presented in the style of a workshop with exercises for readers to practice what they’ve learned. At the heart of the book are eight basic designs, each of which has at least five variations. Each design is relatively simple to stitch without hours of practice or any time spent marking the quilt top. Larkin has also included a chapter on how to decide how to quilt your quilt, which many readers, I’m sure, will find enormously helpful. She provides a systematic approach along with a gallery of designs to inspire. This is a very practical book – it’s intended to be used as a workbook, not as a theory text that you will read and store on your bookshelf. If you’re ready to ‘have a go’ at free-motion machine quilting or, if you’ve tried and not experienced much success, this book is likely to be a very useful companion.
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