Designing Tessellations : The Secrets of Interlocking Patterns

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Summary: Designing Tessellations, a graduate design course
Review: Mystery solved. Tessellations from Escher to Beyer explained! This is really worthy of college graduate level design work. I will soon be trying the many variations suggested, and hope to produce some outstanding quilts as a result. Thank you, Jinny Beyer!

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Summary: Incredible possibilities for artists using tessellations!
Review: The techniques in this book far surpass any other book on tessellations I've seen. It's hard to imagine anyone explaining these complex ideas, but Beyer explains them in an easy-to-understand text. If you like the works of MC Escher, this book is a combination of two artists at their best. Lots of nice quilts to look at and some of Escher's work, too. Beyer, best known for her popular quilting books, shows she is also an artist and a mathemetician at heart. She's taken the simple quilt block a step farther. Her book offers limitless ideas for any artist or math-minded person. I bought it as a reference book for my quilt library, but found my husband pouring over it one day!! Highly recommended.

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Summary: More than quilts!
Review: This book is awesome! Jinny's insights and labeling system to unlock the mystery of these interlocking motifs is the best source I have found, yet! My purpose for investigating tessellations was for a design project for a class I teach, "Advanced Photoshop for Designers." The first stage of this assignment was research. My students and I searched all over the internet for insightful tips etc, with regard to this artform. We came up pretty dry....until I found Jinny's book. I'm applying some of her extremely helpful insights and basic symmetry theory to Adobe Photoshop. Working with the Shape layers and paths. Jinny's book is written so well, with very easy to understand instruction on how to create tessellating shapes from a variety of basic geometric shapes. The illustrustions, color plates, printing job and paper, are all of the highest quality. The quilts she has created using these methods are amazing and beautiful! This book could be extremely useful to an audience other than the one I assume it was intended for. Educators who teach Illustration, graphic design, interior design, & textile design. Math teachers and art teachers, of all grade levels could benefit from this book, to come up with exiting and educational projects for their students. I LOVE this book. Thanks to Jinny, for being so smart...now I don't have to drive myself crazy (which, I was) trying to figure out the style of MC Escher, one of my most favorite artists!

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Summary: It's the most exciting quilting book I own.
Review: This book takes a practical approach to design. I bought the book because I love Jenny's work, but the book is so much more than just a quilting book. It's really a course on design which can then be applied to quilts. The book gives such a practical approach to symmetry and design that I find myself excited once again about designing and sewing something wonderful. This is really a must-have book for artists, designers and craftspersons. Jenny's done it again.

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Summary: Excellent for quilters as well as M.C. Escher fans
Review: This is the best book on tessellations I have seen. Since my main goal was to learn M.C. Escher's technique, I was first surprised to see that the author primarily deals with developing quilt patterns, from simple to complex. Only the last few chapters are dedicated to M.C. Escher's work. But I realized quickly that every page leads up to the next, teaching more and more intricate patterns until I was able to analyze Escher's work and see for myself how he developed the patterns.

The book is full of illustrations and step-by-step drawings, so that you can soon create your own artistic work. And using a computer drawing program along with the book is not necessary but helpful if you want fast results with many variations.

After reading, or better working through, this book I looked at other books that concentrated on Escher's work, but none of the authors explained his techniques better than Jinny Beyer. Thanks to her clear explanations and drawings I am now able to develop quite intricate designs on my own.

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Summary: Really more than a "quilt book"
Review: When I first saw this book, I was surprised not to find a quilt on the cover but after reading the book, I realize this was a wise decision. While quilters will get a lot out of it and many of the examples are quilts, the book is really so much more. It addresses basic design issues for all sorts of things. It respectfully simplifies the topic of tessalations without speaking down to the reader by giving both the formal mathematical nomenclature as well as Jinny's shorthand that is more easily understood. I think this would be a good addition for math teachers and art teachers as well as a basic book for all quilters. It makes you stop and look at common things we may see everyday but really may not have really appreciated. I think it may also help to elevate some people's opinion of quilting because it addresses how complicated even the simplest of quilts really are.