[upbeat music] [upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] - Welcome back to Lap Quilting.

On our last show, we finished with a cathedral quilt and I want to review it just briefly so it's perfectly clear in your mind.

Remember we start with a 10 inch square of fabric that's been pre-shrunk and the inserts, the little calico pieces are three inch squares and we turn that and we spent some time at the machine showing how that was done into a square.

Those squares are then folded and remember how we found the midpoint and drew a square within a square and that became our sewing line for sewing these long lines together, these rows were then connected and when those are all connected, we end up with these triangular pieces that come up.

Once those triangular pieces are folded down and whip stitched in the center, remember how we whip stitched those together.

Then it's this little calico square that falls on top of that.

Actually it's covering the two squares that have been machine stitched, so that really is the principle of the cathedral quilt and of course it was optional whether or not you put the little triangular edging all the way around.

One of the principles, oh, I've got one more thing to show you.

If you'd like to make a disco bag, two of the cathedral squares, only start this time with maybe a 12 inch square, a little bit larger, and then you, when you finish it off, you could put a little snap on the inside, two little cords and of course this time the solid piece has been put inside.

It would take a little larger square to fit inside.

Then these triangular points are coming down and then you turn back and you get a little handbag.

One of the principles of our whole series has been to show you how to lap quilt and we have been spending time on that.

I want to review and make sure that you understand about our block to block assembly, when we get each individual block finished and I like to get all of my blocks quilted before I arrange them.

Then we want to work in rows and I have found that horizontal rows work better.

Take our scissors and trim off so all three edges are even.

That is our border, our batting and our our permanent backing.

When that has been finished, then we can line up our two blocks and of course the right sides are gonna be facing each other and I like to pin at each corner, pin at one corner and then come down and pin at the other corner.

Then why not pin right in the center?

Because if there's any distribution of fabric, you can ease that.

I put another pin here and then pulling all your batting and the backing to the backside that frees it and allows you to do the machine stitching all along.

Really the front of your quilt, isn't it?

So you're going to machine stitch all the way down.

I've got one that's already been machine stitched.

Then let this seam inside, it's gonna remain closed, but let it fall to one side all the way down.

Your batting is gonna ride up next to each other.

#* Now if you have a real thick batting, you might want to take a little bit and trim it out.

Sometimes I'll remove, oh, about a quarter of an inch of batting, so you don't, you wouldn't want a lumpy center there.

Once that has been removed, then one side of your backing, one side goes straight and then the other side turns under a quarter of an inch.

Then by having that and I would start pinning in the center pin all the way down, then this is where you start doing your slip stitching.

That's all done by hand and I have one row already that's been finished and you can kind of get an idea of what's happening there.

This is all been slip stitched.

Keep that free at each end because you need this free to connect one row to the next row.

Here's one that's all pinned, it's from here, then I can connect my rows and it makes a nice step and easy to work with rather than working with a large cumbersome quilt.

These would of course line up.

You wanna make sure when you put row to row that you get this nice connection of the mitered corners.

Do you see how nice that's fitting together?

If you have used a stencil pattern that stops right here or right here.

After your rows are connected, then you could put another quilting line more or less exiting your mitered quarter.

Couldn't you?

Some stencil patterns go all the way around the corner.

Now another tip, if you tend to quilt real tight and you get a lot of fullness here when you're machine stitching this long row, when you're inside here, take a little more than a quarter inch seam allowance that'll help you there.

You'll like that.

Do you remember the really pretty edging, we kind of call this a saw tooth edging that went around the quilt.

This was the black quilt and then we had the calico edging that went around.

This was Betty Snyder's quilt.

You see the nice saw tooth edging you get here?

I wanted to make sure you understood how that was done.

It means taking a square.

Now on this quilt, I used a five inch square, but you could, I've seen on baby quilts, I've seen them start with as small as a three-inch square fold it into a triangle and then fold it into another triangle.

All your raw edges are on the top side.

Then you make a whole lot of those and then they just interloop right inside each other like so and like so, and they're gonna just line up, let your opening be on that side each time.

Wouldn't that be nice?

And I like to pin those together.

If you use a five inch square, it takes six of them to go from on an 18 inch square.

So if you count how many blocks you have around the outside of your quilt and then of course multiply times six, you'll get an idea of how many you need to cut out.

But once those have been pinned together, then you would simply put them on this side of your quilt and free the backing, let that fall the backside.

Then I would machine stitch that to your top, catching your batting, and then when you come on the backside, you just need to turn your raw edge under and it will cover any machine stitching and you'll get the sawtooth edging on your quilt.

It makes a nice accent.

Of course, the most popular way to finish off a quilt is with bias tape, and I wanna show you just briefly how to do a continuous bias cutting, which is really nice.

Normally when you're doing bias tape, you will of course form a perfect bias and then you'll simply keep cutting maybe three inch wide strips and then you'll have to sew 'em together.

There is a method where you can form a tube and then cut continuous bias strips that have already been pre sewn and I wanna show this to you briefly.

Maybe you've seen it on paper and it just hasn't made sense.

You need to start with a square.

Now pretend this has not been cut.

Any square of fabric.

If you wanted to make a lot of bias tape, I would start with perhaps a yard and a quarter, and if you were working with 45 inch material, when you folded that over, you're going to get almost about 12 yards of three and a half inch wide bias tape.

In this case, this might be ruffles for a small pillow.

So I've started with a smaller piece, it's a perfect square and I fold it into a triangle.

Then I'm going to cut it all the way down.

This is the bias edge.

Then I'm going to take this straight edge and meet it up here with this edge and you get this look, you might wanna draw that on a piece of paper.

Can you see that look that you get?

All right.

Then let's pretend that I have sewn that.

I'll put a couple of pins in here and this will give you an idea.

Once that has been machine sewn and I'd use say a quarter inch seam allowance, if you're gonna keep your seam closed, if you want to iron it out flat, you might use a five eights seam allowance.

Once that has been done, open it up and note that you have really a parallelogram.

All right, from there, you take your other straight edge and have it come up and meet this edge.

Now, when you do that, you want to make sure, let me do that once more so you see that real well.

This edge comes all the way up and meets this edge.

Now when you come up here, you want to have in your mind how wide a bias strip you want.

Say you've measured and you know it's three inches, put a little snip right there and you know that's three inches.

That is where you place and that is where you're going to start sewing and that you are going to place that edge right there.

Freeing that, aren't you?

All right, come all the way down.

Let's pretend I have sewn this and I'll put just a couple of pins in.

I have one in muslin, it's already completed.

Now when you get down to this end, you're gonna notice that what's left over is that same three inches, all right?

If you open this up, you can see that you've got a tube.

You can just start cutting and do continuous bias strips.

I have another one here that you can get more of a better idea.

This is a course in muslin, but do you see what I mean by a biased tube?

And here is your strip, your three-inch strip is right here, and what I like to do, if I know this is say perfect three inches, then as I'm cutting, I'll just keep folding that back and then using this as a pattern.

Just keep cutting round and round, okay?

Remember when you are adding your bias strips to your quilt, the raw edges, we used a double fold and so the raw edges are like so on the quilt, and I would then machine stitch this.

Of course, I would pin it first and curve your corners a little bit.

It makes it easier.

I'd machine stitch like so then this is gonna turn under and I'll do my handwork on the backside.

Let's look at some ruffles on quilts.

This is a beautiful quilt.

Maybe you hadn't thought about red and white polka dots with a big ruffle, but I think this Mrs. Mabry has done a beautiful job of setting off her blocks and they're really highlighted with the polka dots.

You remember this, the black and white quilt also with a ruffle.

The same idea would hold true with the ruffle as it would be with the sawtooth edging.

Take your ruffle if it were eyelet and place it like so machine stitch on the top side and then when you turned under, of course this would already be held in place when you turned under this backing is gonna turn over that and then you would do your handwork and your ruffle would be concealed.

I think this is a marvelous way to highlight a sampler quilt.

Mary Powell finished this quilt and I think her colors are choice of yellow and blue are striking, and it wasn't enough that she did a beautiful double quilt.

She decided to put this lovely accent on the outside and it truly is a pieced border.

Notice how she set off the corner, she's resolved her corners with just one square of yellow, but it meant cutting out a triangle, then sewing two little triangles on it to form a rectangle and she of course would figure out how many she needed.

I think even in the center, she has a nice, an interesting pattern going on here too.

Then also Lori Wolf, as has a beautiful study in pink and black and she has put two wide bands to highlight her quilt.

Notice that here if the, if the quilt is all finished and you have those raw edges to work with, it's a matter of sewing your two bands together and I think a long continuous strip is nice without any seams.

So it means some pre-planning when you buy your fabric, then cut out your batting and I pin this together so that when you sow this to your quilt raw edge the top, you're gonna catch your batting in that also.

You would then have to add another piece of muslin on the backside, but you'd have that loose piece to do that.

Now she has put just a limited amount of quilting in the border.

You could do more if if you wanted to.

There's one other feature that I wanted to show you.

We had spent some time with angles on the sewing machine.

Do you remember the hexagon and the formal garden and our bow tie pattern?

Those were more than 90 degree angles.

I wanted to show you a perfect right angle.

Now, this is a very old example of what we would refer to as the Lone star, Texas Star, star of Bethlehem, a quilt that is really an eight pointed star quilt and perhaps you've seen these and admire them and kind of wondered how they were made.

I have put some tape here to more or less show you the technique.

Perhaps you thought that the diamonds were started in the center and that they just kept adding diamonds in a circular fashion.

But actually what is done is each point of the diamond is constructed and in this case there are 521 little diamonds in this whole quilt.

It really was a test of patience, but I think this shows you how the point is done.

It's this angle that I wanna show you on the sewing machine.

The same idea could be seen.

Now this is a Christmas table covering.

Do you see this right angle?

That's what I want to show you.

And do you remember we worked on this LeMoyne star that was really a form of the string quilt and the crazy patch design.

Let me show you quickly on the sewing machine, I have a LeMoyne star already put together.

Here is one completed more or less what we're going to be doing.

And also remember that in each case of a LeMoyne star, we would get one half of the star done, wouldn't we?

And then we'd get the other half done and then staggering our seams in the middle.

Can you see how I would have that seam go towards the yellow?

It's a little bit darker, and then the other one go in this direction, pin those in opposite directions and then sew all the way across and your star is completed.

Now to add your corners in and your triangles, I really feel the best way, and it can be done on the machine, is to line that up with a little bit of dog ear showing and I'm going to sew all the way down to that seam, but I'm not going to catch it.

I'm gonna leave it free.

All right, I'm going to, the idea is that I wanna impress on you is that you cannot pivot.

It's the type of thing that you have to start sewing.

Now I wanna check underneath and make sure I'm not catching that when I get to the end and I can feel that.

Stop and back stitch and then take it completely off the machine and go ahead and then turn, do you see how I'm making that turn?

And then come again and when I line this up, I'll see that little dog ear only in the yellow and then come back here and start again.

But when you start again, start down here in the center where you finished and I think you'll realize if you did that, if you tried to pivot that right angle, what you do is you catch that seam underneath.

I think it's nice to pivot there all the way down.

Now this same idea will work with a triangle because of course it's got that right angle also.

But you see how nicely that turns and what you've done is you have left that raw edge free.

The same idea with the triangle would be fitting in and you'll see what happens when you sew that and you come out and you open it.

The idea is from that black raw edge, once again, you've got your quarter inch seam allowance and that would be the way to go ahead and finish any sort of eight pointed star like this with a right angle.

Maybe you would like to quilt an entire quilt on a large hoop rather than block to block assembly, or you'd want to construct a quilt top.

Maybe you have one that's been handed down in your family and of course you don't wanna tear it apart to do lap quilting, but you wanna use a large embroidery hoop.

I've seen these come also round and oval at the same time.

Notice that underneath, it even has a a stand that's real nice.

It can support the the hoop and you could either quilt with it on that stand or you could take it off and it is free, but it means of course getting down the floor and choosing a backing for your quilt and spreading that out.

And then your polyester batting and then your quilt top will rest on top of that.

I do a lot of hand basting and you can see the large basting stitches.

Then when you arrange that on the hoop, make sure that you start quilting in the center.

And then when you get that part finished, I would perhaps come over here and then go to the opposite side.

So you're really working out and the last part that you'll be quilting is on the edge and you could probably do that without any hoop at all.

If you notice I have made the backing a little bit larger, which makes it nice, then you can simply take that when you've finished and roll that over and you'll get to see some of that calico on the front side.

Another idea that I think Gwen Broyles has just done a marvelous job.

She not only has made a sampler, but then she had the fun part of choosing a different stencil design in each one of her borders.

And I think this has highlighted her quilt very nicely.

She also, of course put a calico border around the outside, but keep in mind that these stencil patterns are something that has been handed down through the years.

A lot of them are available in your library, in quilt magazines, or if you're creative, why not try making some of your own designs.

Here's an idea of placing the different stencil designs on a room divider.

This happens to be an old one, but you could even do a modern one and have the same idea.

This is the sampler really of stencil designs, some feather designs, some of 'em that I thought up myself.

So there are different ways of doing that.

Do you remember the log cabin blocks that we were working on?

Remember it took 36 of these blocks for a king size bed, and I have arranged this in a design that is called straight furrows.

The log cabin design comes in many different arrangements.

You've heard of barn raising, and lightning, and the zigzag.

All of those are determined by the way you would place one block next to the next one, whether you would have for instance, the dark side up to the next dark side.

This one of course has been lap quilted.

You can look on the backside and see where the handwork has been done, but it's just an idea for lap quilting where you would not be using your borders.

And there are several of the patterns in our study guide that work very nicely drunkard's path.

And keep in mind that house on the hill and moon over the mountain patterns that have a distinct up and down don't work as well.

But this would be a a fun idea.

Another idea would be taking our blocks and turning them in what would be known as a diagonal set instead of what we normally think of of our blocks being set straight on, we would simply turn them diagonally.

Now, after you would have all of these quilted, they would be assembled then in diagonal rows, wouldn't they?

But because of that, I like to choose maybe a calico backing on the backside because you won't see your handwork as much on the backside.

I've also gone ahead, you see the border all around this quilt will become really half a block, won't it?

But it'll be on the diagonal also.

Here is where your border stops.

And so this is really half of one of these blocks and I've gone ahead and machines sewn this together.

So I'll actually be lap quilting this part.

What this takes is a little bit of work on your graph paper and getting it down on paper.

I've even taken a pen and have numbered each one of these blocks.

So as I'm quilting them, I'll know where they set in the quilt because I have predetermined where everything is going.

Another idea would be in remembering our star flower pattern.

That was a simple square and our triangle when it's put together, one of my very favorite old timey patterns is called attic windows.

For some reason I always think of a farm yard and I think in one of these blocks I'm gonna have to quilt a kitty cat somewhere.

But quite often this is an interesting pattern, but done block to block without any borders.

And what it would mean would be putting four of your 12 inch blocks together.

When those are put together, of course you're gonna come up with a 24 and a half inch square, aren't you?

It's still lap quiltable.

In other words, you don't want a block that's going to be much larger than that because your offhand couldn't hold much more of that fabric, could it?

But this is a nice weight right there.

You wouldn't want any more.

I would quilt that than on my lap, making sure that I had left at least an inch or a half an inch free all the way around the outside.

So that then for instance, when this block was put, this one of course has not been quilted.

When that had been put next to this block, you could just keep building your whole quilt in that manner without any borders.

You get an entirely new design.

This is a great way to use up your leftover calicos.

And then of course, the uniformity of the whole quilt is the solid color.

Also, if you'll notice, whenever I've seen this quilt put together, there's always a briar or a feather stitch that runs on the diagonal that kind of draws out that line, doesn't it?

I think it's a nice accent.

Do you remember the commemorative stamp that was issued a few years ago in studying this pattern?

I could figure out that it actually is a part of our shoo fly pattern.

Do you remember our square and our triangle?

And if you put these together, and of course you'll want to make a curved handle and then treat that like an applique.

Turn under the raw edges.

And that would be when you have that sewn together, what I do is come with a little seam ripper and simply slit that open and split that under and then go ahead and you're going to then have to slip stitch all the way around that and hold it in place.

But that becomes of course, sewn block to block a very nice arrangement.

This could be the beginning of an entire quilt, couldn't it?

Here again, if you're going to work in that manner, put it down on graph paper.

I think it's a good way to get everything arranged.

If I wanted to more or less have a diamond look around that I could take, do you remember my nine patch that was arranged in this manner?

I could go ahead and arrange that all the way highlighting my pattern.

It's kind of fun to see a quilt that's just in the beginning stages, which which that one is.

Another idea of course that is a reminiscent of many years ago, but I'm of course very sentimental about this.

On one of my classes recently, they presented to me an an autograph quilt.

And of course, I just have the blocks now I have a long way to go.

But this is the sort of thing that is very heartwarming and each one of the class put together, it's sometimes called a signature quilt.

Each one of the class did a block, and then with embroidery work, they added their name in the center.

And I'll have to lap quilt this in some sort of an arrangement.

But it's this type of thing that makes a quilt very warm and earthy looking.

Keep in mind to try your new way of making a knot.

I think that's a nice, a nice way to begin quilting.

Have you tried that?

Where you take the end of your needle and hold it in your right hand, the end of your thread in your offhand, place it right on the needle, and then once and twice, wrap it around the needle, pull that down between your fingers and with your offhand, pull that all the way through.

Sometimes at the end we'll get a little tail that you can clip off, but it sure makes a perfect knot every time.

Remember, we had have trouble with our knot not coming through perfectly, but this is a good way to start.

Remember to always start quilting your blocks in the center.

I think that's come through.

I've gotta try that again.

There it's caught.

Now give it a tug and make sure that it's in there for good.

Don't ever quilt in the ditch.

That's a term we're use in sewing when you'd be quilting right down the seam.

But that's kind of silly to do because then you're gonna miss seeing those that beautiful handwork.

So keep I would say at least an eighth or a quarter of an inch from your seam line.

A lot of people like to quilt a full quarter of an inch from that seam because then they miss the seam allowance if it's turned in a certain direction.

Also, remember that it's better to sneak through an area than it is to stop and tie every time, because that tends to weaken your quilt the more knots you have.

So for instance, if I were coming all the way down here, I would sneak through to the border.

You might notice the scallops on this quilt.

This is a nice way to give a soft edge to a quilt.

And more or less way of prefinishing the outside of a quilt.

It's a matter of dividing this area into the curves that you want and then making sure to take that pattern and draw it on the backside.

For instance, this was turned like sew a few minutes ago, and I machine sewed it, turned it inside out, and then the first stitch I did, of course was quilting each one of the scallops.

And that still leaves the sides free, doesn't it?

This then can go on and be further constructed like a lap quilted object.

And you of course, in the corner, you would have a big scallop and you'd have to work that out on paper also.

There were many years ago, there was a time of course, when we didn't have telephones, that quilts were used to relay messages of one thing or another.

And down in New Orleans, in the Cajun country, quite often if you'd see a red quilt hanging out in the line that meant a political victory.

A blue quilt with a white star meant that a wedding was in the making.

A yellow quilt meant quarantine.

If you saw a quilt hanging out with a wash, that meant that a child had eaten too much watermelon.

So today, I still think quilts relay a message, and for me, it has meant that it's more or less a confirmation and an acknowledgement of the importance of handwork in our daily lives.

I wanna thank you for watching.

It's been my pleasure to be with you.

I hope that I've opened a new door of handwork for you.

Thank you very much.

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