Bella Bella Sampler Quilts

McMeeking (Bella Bella Quilts) presents quilts as vibrant as medieval cathedrals. In fact, she bases her designs on the colorful marble floors and pillars of cathedrals. In doing so, McMeeking is extending the scope of the Cosmati—Italian designers of the Middle Ages, who harvested stones from Roman ruins and recast them to pave and decorate religious and public buildings. McMeeking, in turn, re-repurposes those recycled floors as cunning templates for advanced quilt patterns. She replicates marble designs on fabric with needle-pierced duplicates and paper-foundation piecing (and also guides quilters not familiar with the method). The greatest advantage of the technique: “It is very, very accurate!” –Though not for beginners, it allows for working with shapes that call for Y-seams or stamp-size pieces (the tesserae of mosaics). The book includes full-size paper-piecing patterns for nine projects on pullouts. With each set of well-illustrated instructions, McMeeking encourages quilters to “think about how you might vary this design.” These stunning quilts, such as “Laterano Interlace” and “Diamante Delight,” showcase McMeeking’s visionary artistic expertise. (May)