Word quilts are making a resurgence, and I want to tell you how this book can help you make them, whether you use its alphabet or one of the many other alphabets that are available in our quilty world.*

First of all, Quilt Talk® has a FULL alphabet: uppercase, lowercase, numbers, punctuation, special characters (all the ones above the numbers on your keyboard) and all the accent characters for Spanish and French languages.

It includes a chapter on how I do paper-piecing without using special rulers or tools, and how I pre-cut for paper-pieced letters to minimize fabric waste. I’ve had a lot of people write me about how easy my paper-piecing instructions are to follow, especially for paper-piecing newbies!

But the most useful parts of the book are probably the sections on how to SIZE your words and space your letters. Most letter patterns come in sizes that quickly get big, and if you want to say more than a few words you’re likely to end up with an unnecessarily huge quilt. This book covers the easy math for making the words come out the size YOU want them to be. And here’s the bonus… these concepts can be adapted to ANY alphabet patterns.

The book also has a great section on how to choose your fabric values and pattern textures for maximum impact. If you’re going to take the time to make a word quilt, let’s make sure it can be easily read!

So even if you’ve found another alphabet you want to try, Quilt Talk® will help you make the best use of it!

For a more detailed description of what the book covers, read here.

*And here’s a shout out to a few other alphabets available:

• Denyse Schmidt’s The Proverbial Quilt (print) (pdf)
• Tula Pink’s Modern Alphabet (pdf only)
• Elizabeth Hartman’s Refrigerator Magnets
• Diane Bohn’s (From Blank Pages) My First Alphabet and My ABC’s
• QuietPlay‘s extensive alphabet options

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I belong to the Portland Modern Quilt Guild, and we get extra door prize tickets if we have a hand-made name badge. So my friend Monica said she was going to Quilt Talk® hers.

Now I’ve seen some small Quilt Talk® letters (check out Paula Fleischer’s “Crazy” in the gallery section of the book). I’ve MADE small Quilt Talk® letters. I was skeptical about seeing them come out at any size that wouldn’t look a bit like a billboard hanging around someone’s neck. Or worse, a bib!

This was her first snap-shot to me:

And all I can say is WOW. They be tiny, but they be elegant! And legible! And she wasn’t cussing at me when she was done!

And then she surprised me with an offer to make me one! I’m no fool, and immediately proffered fabric – and bound it in Sam I Am fabric when it arrived:

And then she started copying tiny letters and sharing them with our mini-group pals:

I’m utterly tickled by all the tiny wordplay!

So if you want to make one for yourself (or any other tiny worded thing), here’s the recipe, from Monica:

“On a copier, first reduce the letters to 25%, and then reduce that size to 75%.  If you have a shorter name, the first round of shrinking might be plenty.”

And just to give you a sense of scale:

Thank you, Monica!

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