If you love medallions as I do, you may be interested in the new book, the Modern Medallion Workbook. I have NOT had a chance to see it in person yet. But here is a review by Joanna the Snarky Quilter with her thoughts.
I have mixed feelings about The Modern Medallion Workbook, one of the latest books riding the coat tails of the modern quilt movement. In a nutshell, I think it’s a perfectly OK book with some nice patterns from a bunch of quilters active in the modern quilt movement. However, I think it’s a marketing hook to call many of the book’s quilts modern.
What makes a medallion quilt modern is never defined. All that’s said on this is it’s a medallion quilt with “the addition of modern fabrics and a modern aesthetic.” I take this to mean modern medallion quilts are what the authors and their friends made. Only a few of the eleven quilts – Drop of Golden Sun, June, Graphical Modern, and One Step At A Time – seem modern to me. I focused on the use of negative space, asymmetry, and a pared down look…
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Catbird Quilt Studio 
Very interesting review. I think it’s always good to give the positives and negatives of a book or pattern, but some of it goes a little far for me. Is it too much of a stretch to think that someone would read a pattern and be able to access the level of difficulty on their own? And obviously a book can only be so long and not contain everything. Having not seen this book, it’s hard for me to make a real judgement on the fairness of the review, but I think opening with all that jabber about modern quilts is a waste of time. I think that’s one of the reasons I attempt to avoid that term.
I understand your point about difficulty level. Since I don’t use patterns, I can’t really say if I agree or not. As to “jabber” about modern quilts, I think it is important since the book is being marketed as “modern.” It’s in the title, after all. It seems like a fair criticism.
I haven’t seen the book yet so I don’t have strong opinions about the review. I do know the blogger reviews books thoughtfully and without influence of any financial gain.
I’ll see if they’ve reviewed any of the books I have. I think the problem with the term modern is that even the MQG struggles to define it. And saying they “don’t look modern to me” seems to discount the fact that they might seem to fit other people’s ideas of modern quilting.
I guess that’s really the source of the problem, isn’t it? MQG can’t define it, and no one else can either. That in itself leaves the term open to criticism. If we can’t agree on what it means, it doesn’t really mean anything. Thanks very much for your comments.
Absolutely right Melanie!