A Review of Modern Quilts Illustrated!

All pictures were borrowed from Weeks Ringle's blog at craftnectar.com.  I am sure by now you have heard of the new modern quilting magazine that recently become available--I was one of the lucky ones to get a copy of the first edition to do a review on.  While Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr have been on the forefront of modern quilting for a long time (my first modern quilts were all made with their designs--Outside the Box being my absolute favorite so far!) this magazine will appeal to quilters of all ages even if modern quilting isn't the only type of quilting they do.  

The table of contents includes a photo of each of the three featured patterns for quick reference.  There are two regular columns which include "The Cutting Table" and "Palette Chasing," the latter is pictured below.

While "Palette Chasing" shows an inspiring group of colors/fabrics (in this first issue they are Kona solids) with the inspiration photo--the library of congress' wall in Washington D.C., "The Cutting Table" is two full pages that are also graphically appealing (it looks like a design wall with inspiration all over it!) which includes tips and musing and much of said inspiration.  My favorite tip in this issue is a silver dog tag that encourages quilters to visit a website to get more information about adapting clothes for wounded service members. 

The photos are by Jim White and are gorgeously done and on quality paper.  The pages in this magazine are really more like a good quality art book.  

While the magazine is only seventeen pages plus cover and back, it is all content and no advertisements whatsoever.  Most quilting magazines are full of ads which thicken the magazine so I think for this type of publication this is a good size.  The editing is great and I didn't notice any typos or spelling errors (I am one of those people that spots things like that easily!).  

Each of the three original quilt patterns is shown in several different color variations--often changing up how many different colors are in the layout which really provides a lot of options for each quilt pattern and is really inspiring for people like me who tend to follow patterns as they are.  This gives me options to successfully create my quilt as I want it!  As you can see from the picture below, the directions for cutting and sewing are shown visually as well as written in words.  It is spread out and is very readable.  I never like magazines that try to save space by jumbling the directions all together and skipping steps or combining steps.  This step by step explanation is SO clear and easy to follow.   

Each quilt is introduced with a page that tells how it came about or why they chose it.  This page also includes suggestions for changing up the quilt or pattern.  These designers know and use color theory and make it easy for people to understand how to get the look they want with each quilt.  They also list exactly what fabrics were used for the pictured quilts for quilters to assemble it themselves and offer kits of the original fabric choices for sale in case the quilter doesn't want to hunt each fabric down.  

All in all I love this new modern quilting magazine.  I plan to subscribe to it myself and know I will learn a lot and will make more Modern Quilt Studio quilts.  If you want to know where to order it you can go to http://craftnectar.com/ and check out Weeks' blog.  Their new website is still under construction at http://modernquiltstudio.com/ so meanwhile you can check out http://funquilts.com/ for more information.  This publication gets five (modern looking) stars up from me.  Check it out and let me know what you think!