I'd always liked the idea of making a patchwork quilt but was reluctant to make the investment in the equiptment. Lynne's book convinced me and I've never looked back. Her explanations are crystal clear and the pictures accompanying every block show what you are aiming for. I can't wait until her next book is published!

This book was based on classes Ms. Edwards taught in England. Her students produced some stunning work. Excellent instructions and lovely photographs compliment the text. A must if you love sampler quilts and enjoy working with Liberty-style prints and colors.

From the basic old-timey muslin version to updated silk masterpieces, this book details all how-to and design information about the classic Cathedral Window quilt pattern. The instructions are clear and easy to follow while the color photographs--especially those of the silk quilts--inspire you to try your hand at this pattern. A must for the quiltmaker's library!

Very informative with wonderful ways to use squares and rectangles to make new designs in Cathedral Windows. Easy to follow directions to make your own templates for any size that you would need. Some templates are included for your use. Many easy to follow patterns to make your own designs using your choice of fabrics.

When I read a book on a specific artist, I approach it from three different angles. I am an artist first and foremost, a graphic designer by profession, and employed by a library. This book ranks five stars in all three categories. It's usually pretty easy to find an art book with really good color reproductions or with really good text, but to find one such as this with both is a true find. The author's insightful and intelligent writing combined with the wonderful color reproductions really puts you right in Edward Hoppers world. It's also what makes this book an excellent addition to anyones collection!

There are several things that sets this book apart from other quilt sampler books. First, and most important is that the instructions for each block are provided individually, as opposed to general instructions provided in the front section of the book. The instructions are quite detailed, clear, precise and specific to each block. It is the next best thing to having an instructor in the room with you. Second, there are many variations of the quilts and blocks provided throughout the book, one more beautiful than the next. Third, the actual blocks are quite interesting and would be appropriate for any level of quilter. I believe that the novice and experienced quilter will benefit from and enjoy this book equally. Personally, I am a much better quilter for having used this book.

Kositsky plunges her heroine back into Elizabethan England for a wild, rollicking adventure with an acting company and a theater hanger-on named Will Shakspere, who seems to be taking credit for Shakespeare's plays. Young adults (and not so young) will relish her gross encounters with Elizabethan thugs and her winning ways with the acting company and Queen Elizabeth herself, who bestows an early version of the Academy Awards. Hard-core Stratfordians will object to Oxford as the playwright, but Kositsky's light, spoofing treatment, solidly grounded in the facts of the authorship controversy,easily carries the reader into her version of the world's biggest literary mystery. It's a blast from the past.

The ONLY reason the orthodox Stratfordian view of the authorship of Shakespeare's works has managed to survive is that it is taught to the young with no information about its rickety foundation, or about the persuasiveness of the Oxford alternative. Books like this one may hasten the day when the bizarre Stratford myth collapses of its own weight. An admirable corrective, and a fun read.

Here is an engaging, entertaining, and indeed positively delightful romp through the underworld of the Elizabethan theatrical scene -- as witnessed through the eyes of an intellectually precocious thirteen-something (unlucky in love!-Yikes!) named Willow who suddenly finds herself teleported from 20th century Ontario into the grimy candlelight world of London in 1593 where she finds herself rooming with the -- allegedly -- great playwrite "Shakspere."

Only the most dogmatic partisans of the by-now moribund official view of Shakespeare will be offended this linguistically precocious reconstruction of the "might have been" hypothesis of the Earl of Oxford's identity as the real Bard. Indeed Lynne Kositsky has an uncanny knack for anchoring her fictional narrative in detailed and singularly accurate memory for cultural nuance and historical incident. Kositsky also possesses a natural gift for the pulse of language. Her narrator speaks in an energetic and often captivating fusion of Canadian Valley Girl slang and Elizabethen vernacular, which is certain to capture the imagination of many young readers. Is this another J.K. Rowling in the making?

Here's a taste:

Bobby Goffe really hated me, that was for sure: he criticized and cuffed me every chance he got. Shakspere dissed me daily, perchance cos he'd been stuck with me, mayhap cos he feared I'd discovered his secret schemes. And I still needed to keep a sharp look out for that other gig, Beavis, Butthead, and Mystery Guy, at every turn. To cut a long story short, I felt threatened every step I took. At the house, at the Theatre, on the street, a mere whisper would twist my head around, a hint of a hubbub would set my heart to heaving.

(p. 70)

As the reader may detect, Ms. Kositsky's most formidable weapon, like that of her dark hero Edward Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is a razor sharp wit, viz. her biting satirical invocation of the (historically real)duel between actor Gabriel Spencer and actor-playwright Ben Jonson, in which Willow, transporting mysterious packages between Vere and Shakspere, is revealed to be the precipitating cause of the duel:

Galloping gobstoppers, what should I do now? Stand my ground till [Spenser] strangled me, or agree to what he wanted, and then get out while the going was good. I was too scared to make up my mind. He started shaking me again like I was a pair of maracas. And maybe there were two of me at that, cos I was starting to see everything double.

"No, never," I cried at last. "I will never give you anything of Vere's. Do your worst!" I drooped over like a limp lily, and was about to throw up on the villain's boots, really making him mad, when Ben Jonson rushed into the Cathedral. He must have been behind us all the time. In a trice, he realized the mess I was in and shoved his bully-boy face into Spencer's, fixing him with his beery breath. "That's Shakspere's lad, Gabe. Put him down right now, right here, right this minute, before you do him a permanent disablement"......

(p. 102)

The book can be recommended without reserve for all readers between the ages of eight and eighty who love the derring-do world which belongs to "Shakespeare" -- the world which harbored the great voyages of exploration which have made our modern life, for better or worse, what it now is. The author deserves congratulation if not some sort of medal; but one may be sure the further books by Ms. Kositsky are not far from publication.