DVD REVIEW: REBEL QUILTING - THINKING OUTSIDE THE BLOCK

On my quilting journey, I have not had a lot of opportunities to take classes with real live teachers, so last year I decided to invest in more quilting/surface design dvds and online classes, to expand my skills.  One thing I've realised is that not all quilting dvds are born equal and that just as the usefulness of a class may vary, so too will a dvd.

Today I am looking at Rebel Quilting - Thinking Outside the Block, with Jamie Fingal.  The dvd is a Quilting Arts Workshop dvd and costs, at the time of writing this, about $20.  I always try to buy my Quilting Arts dvds in their sales, so I probably paid about half of that.  To link to the dvd, click here.

I chose this dvd because I liked the look of Jamie's quilts.  They are fun and funky and brightly coloured.  Watching the dvd also made me realise that they are really simple to make, and that you could easily make yourself a quilt in a day or two.  I didn't like the whole 'stick a zipper in the middle of your quilt' idea, but then you could just leave it out if you hate it.


I liked that Jamie didn't use batting, bind her quilts or use hanging sleeves.  For me, the best bit of information that Jamie gave, was her quirky way of hanging her quilts.  She sews the ring pulls (tabs) from soft drinks cans to the back, so they can hook over nails.  Brilliant!

The dvd ran for 71 minutes and I'd say it was about 50-60 minutes too long.  There really wasn't enough information on this dvd to fill the time.  It started with what could only be called shameless product placement, naming the make of every single thing she used, down to where she had purchased her bog standard iron.  Definitely a time filler section.

Jamie went on to talk about the pallet of colours for the demonstration quilt, but really didn't talk about colour as such.  It was really about how this particular fabric didn't look right against that one (so she didn't use it for this project) and that blue was her favourite colour.  I really think this section, was a lost opportunity to bring in some really useful information about the colour wheel and how colours work against each other.

Jamie constructed the quilt panels, but again, she really didn't talk about design elements, just put something here and then something over there.  Great in that it showed the audience that you didn't need to be a genius to make this style of quilt, but talking about some design principles would have been useful information.

We watched as Jamie ironed misty fuse to every piece of fabric she used (wouldn't one or two have sufficed?).  We also watched her quilt a whole panel of the quilt (a section would have given us the same information), pull out individual trims from a basket etc.  It all just felt a bit too much like time filling.

I think the problem here, which I think happens in a number of digital classes, is that it is hard to fill a reasonable amount of time on a dvd.  In a real class, time gets taken up with you practicing what has been demonstrated, questions, running off on tangents etc.  With a digital class, I suspect people will only buy or subscribe, if it lasts for a certain amount of time.  To be honest, I am probably in that group.  If this dvd was 10 or 20 minutes long, I wouldn't have bothered buying it.  Well I wouldn't for that price.

I have wondered whether this dvd was aimed at the novice quilter, but there was nothing to indicate this at the time of purchase.

This dvd did inspire me to try my hand at one of these quilts.  However, I think it would have been better kept as just a segment on Quilting Arts tv, and was really not worth $20 as a stand alone dvd.