Heirloom Machine Quilting

This is probably the best machine quilting reference and guide I’ve seen, full of practical information on threads, needles, battings, etc. The beautiful photographs of antique and contemporary machine quilted quilts alone are worth it (36 color photographs). The book consists of five sections:

1. Getting ready: dealing with work space, equipment (your sewing machine and accessories), needles, threads (including nylon and specialty threads)..

2. Preparing the quilt: choosing a design, seven different methods for making stencils, a very good explanation on how to size a design to fit a border, marking tools, and complete descriptions of the different types of batting available.

3. Techniques: quilt-as-you-go, lining and batting for whole quilts, layering, packaging, straight-line quilting, free-motion techniques, and ideas for machine quilting.

4. Finishing up: binding and the care and keeping of quilts.

5. Designs: 22 continuous line machine quilting designs.

Full of the most practical tips I’ve seen on machine quilting, if you have to choose only one book - this is it!