I’m excited to share another book review with you today: Simply Retro with Camille Roskelley – Fresh Quilts from Classic Blocks.

Building on the popularity of her amazing Swoon quilt, Camille has created 13 fabulous new quilts for this book, all based on traditional blocks with an updated twist.

Most of these delectable delights can be made from precuts (a favorite “treat” we both agree on), but Camille includes instructions for cutting from yardage, too!

In the book, Camille utilizes quick piecing methods such as chain piecing and she demos my favorite way of making HST’s (half-square triangles). She also scores bonus points from me for quilting a few of the quilts herself using Aurifil thread (my favorite).

My personal favorite quilt from Simply Retro is Baby Love – the large one block version shown below. Camille’s geometric chevron quilting is the perfect complement to such a bold modern design! (The pattern for a smaller block version is included, too!)

Baby Love by Camille Roskelley

Throughout the book there are plenty of detailed diagrams and yummy style shots to drool over. (Many times when I collect quilt books I don’t actually make the projects – I just love reading them and looking at the pictures for inspiration!)

One of the really fun things about this book is seeing Camille’s sense of style and color come through. Although she is an amazing fabric designer, she uses a wide variety of prints in the quilts presented in this book. She combines fabrics from her stash with prints from her lines as well as those of other designers for the most wonderful fabric combinations.

Dwell by Camille Roskelley. Aren’t the houses so sweet?

I love Camille’s philosophy of “making it fit”. She will often make several different versions of the same quilt, but each one is unique in its own way. Sometimes she’ll change up the block size, quilt size, or add or subtract borders. In Simply Retro, Camille walks you through the basics on how to adjust any quilt pattern to the size you want. She also includes steps on how to calculate quilt backings and bindings.

Camille includes quiltmaking basics at the end of the book and actually shows some ideas and process steps for machine quilting (yay!). If this book sounds interesting to you, it’s available for purchase on Amazon or your favorite local quilt shop. 🙂

Framed by Camille Roskelley. I love this one!