Take 5: Quilts From Just 5 Fabrics, by Kathy Brown

If you are not familiary with Kathy Brown, you need to be.  She is an amazing quilter, pattern designer, fabric designer, and author.  Her most recent book is "Strip-Smart Quilts: 16 Designs From One Easy Technique".  But she is also the author of "Take 5:Quilts from Just 5 Fabrics", which is the book I want to share insights with you today.

Take 5 is really a fun quilt book, published by Martingale & Company, Home of That Patchwork place.  It is an excellent book for beginners, but also a book with fun quilts that will interest quilters of all levels, even advanced quilts.

Karen shares insights on how you can select five fabrics (one focus fabric, plus four coordinating fabrics), stack them, cut them simultaneously, and you are ready to sew.  Sounds simple and it is, but there is much more to this "Take 5 Technique".

There are 15 projects in this book that range in size from 36"x42" to 88"x112".

All of the projects have excellent instructions with great visuals and inspirational photos of the finished quilts.

This book also includes excellent information in the section on "Quiltmaking Basics" to help beginner quilters (e.g. tools, cutting tips, pinning & pressing, adding borders, quilting binding, etc.).

And, some of the quilts in this book have been beautifully quilted by by Karen McTavish, Sandra Buibeau, Carol Hilton, Rachel Justis, Ellen Rushin and Jamie Wallen. 

I hope you get a chance to check out this book at your local quilt store, or at the online store at Martingale Publishing.

 And, if you have already had a chance to pick up a copy of this book and make one of the projects, I'd also love to hear your thoughts.  It would also be fun to see a picture of your project.  Martingale & Company also has a fun Flickr group where everyone is encouraged to share photos of projects that they've made using books that they've published.