QUILTING IN SQUARES

Even Tom Sawyer, who gave himself away threading that needle, could attempt a quilt from these exuberant, unintimidating instructions for quilts made from individually stitched squares. Fisher and Kay introduce patchwork, applique, and piecework quilts, include interesting asides (early American quilters left paper liners in for extra warmth), and lots of capitalized cheer: IF ARITHMETIC TURNS YOU OFF or (once finished) FAMILY REJOICES or (for variation) TIE ONE ON. Grandmother's Square--an arrangement of hexagons--comes first, a patchwork requiring more commitment than imagination; the applique quilts, more difficult, appear with readily duplicable figures--Sunbonnet Sue and friends; and the piecework quilts move up to more demanding patterns like Log Cabin and Cathedral. The full-color photographs of these and others, stitched by the authors and their friends, display the finished work to advantage. A charmer.