Quilting the National Parks: 20 Original Designs Inspired by the Beauty of Our National Parks

In this largely successful debut, Forster commemorates America’s natural splendor with quilted designs. She recommends starching fabric to make it easier to work with and details how to create the four blocks (half-curve, quarter-curve, half-rectangle triangle, and half-square triangle) that constitute each project. Among the most representational quilts are the Joshua Tree, which depicts one of the park’s eponymous yucca plants against a sunset background, and the Yosemite, which shows one of the park’s waterfalls. Other projects are less literal. For instance, green and blue geometric curves stand in for the Everglades’s winding waterways, pink and brown stripes reminiscent of retro supergraphics denote the Grand Canyon’s sedimented layers, and wavy blue stripes capture the vibrant hues of the ocean that surrounds Florida’s Dry Tortugas National Park. Forster also shows how to apply quilting techniques to other items, describing how to make a pillow case with brown and orange rectangles that stand in for a forest of redwoods, as well as a wall hanging that depicts West Virginia’s New River flowing between the steep inclines of New River Gorge. Not every design works (the triangular trees and colored lines representing the Northern Lights, as visible from Minnesota’s Voyageurs National Park, are so rudimentary they border on childish), but the more abstract projects enchant. This will satiate crafters’ wanderlust. (Apr.)