[upbeat music] - Welcome to the neighborhood.

Our quilters neighborhood.

Block after block of eight inch houses exchanged between 22 friends.

It's a deja vu trip to Freedom Escape.

For 12 years, we have gathered together for instruction.

Once again, the setting is just perfect.

For a whole week now we have 22 machines set up on a loft.

No cooking, no laundry.

There's even an ice storm outside.

What could be better?

We are in quilters heaven.

[upbeat music] ♪ Could you imagine a more clever object?

♪ ♪ Warms the body, ignites the mind ♪ ♪ A child sleeps under mother's creation ♪ ♪ Together forever.

♪ ♪ The art of the heart ♪ ♪ and design of the mind ♪ ♪ puts you to bed one day at a time ♪ ♪ The art of the heart ♪ ♪ and design of the mind ♪ - [Announcer] "Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel" is made possible in part by grants from Leisure Arts, publisher and distributor of needlework and craft publications, including an assortment of quilt books and related products, by VIP Fabrics, a division of Cranston Printworks Company, America's oldest textile printer.

Additional funding by Omnigrid, the original patented black and yellow ruler, and by Bernina, delivering sewing technology and education to sewers worldwide.

- Now, it was a couple of years ago that we decided to exchange blocks.

We chose the pattern.

They were houses and we made the same house 22 times.

Then when we got together last year, we exchanged houses.

[upbeat music] Now what's happened in a year's time?

Well, 13 have finished their tops.

Three actually quilted them and that leaves, well, nine, I guess still in the plastic bag.

How often do we have the opportunity to talk and meet with the actual quilters that have made these tops?

We have the chance now.

Come along.

Well, Lee, what's a house without a tree?

And you really have gotten carried away here.

Can we go through these and just get an idea of 'em?

They're so exciting.

I really didn't know there were this many ways to make trees.

All different shapes.

No two alike.

Some ovals, some curved and oval, some curved.

And oh-oh, what's this?

You've been to Alaska.

- [Lee] Right, we went there this summer and we have an RV and I sew in my RV.

It's wonderful.

- Oh gosh.

You've got the trees outside and you're making them inside and, oh, paper piecing.

- Yes.

- You like that way of putting 'em together?

- [Lee] I love paper piecing.

It's very easy to be accurate.

And that was something you taught us last year.

I really enjoy it.

- Now you've probably all excited about getting your quilt done once you've seen all the finished ones, - Right.

I plan on using my trees in the water.

- Okay, it's just great.

We'll look for it next year.

- [Quilter] It's okay, I have brought... - Joann, being the overachiever that you are, tell us what your goal was with your house quilt.

- Well, I wanted to finish it this year.

And in doing the border, I tried paper piecing the train and had a good time with that.

- [Georgia] The border really stands out on yours.

I like the repetition of the house line too.

Did you do that with paper piecing or just... - No, I use some of the techniques that you've shown us over the years for quick piecing.

- [Georgia] Good, are you pleased with the results?

- [JoAnn] Yes, I like them, but after seeing others, I would like to have brought up the green between the houses to give it a little depth.

- [Georgia] Oh, okay.

Well let's talk to Gerri about that.

Jerry, I especially like yours even though there's no border on it yet.

Where did you get that idea?

- Well, looking at some of the others, I felt bringing that grass up between the houses did add some depth.

So I've incorporated that into mine.

- [Georgia] I think all of us wish we had done that now.

So Doris, yours has a lot of repetition in the trees.

Was there a reason there or... - [Doris] I wanted to try paper piecing and I also thought that would help to balance the quilt.

- [Georgia] More border for you or stop here.

- I'm going to take some of the ideas from the other girls and incorporate it into my quilt.

- Great.

Gen, my assistant this week couldn't be here to talk about her quilt.

She's iced in, but we really like her finished house quilt.

Notice the sky fabric, how it introduced a whole new blue color scheme.

We like the random setting of the house in this particular quilt.

My quilt is not quilted, but it's all pieced.

Now, the ladies have pointed out a few strange characteristics about mine.

I like the black touches of the smoke.

I got a little carried away with too much smoke and the flexacurve border has some strange things going on.

We'll talk about that later.

Now for four quilts of all things.

Alice, I like the courthouse look or the town look that you have.

What are you calling this?

- I'm gonna name it after our group here.

Weaverville, USA.

- Very good.

And you probably don't realize it, but I see that the houses become the sashing.

- [Alice] Well, I guess you could say that.

- [Georgia] And I, you've also accented with a new block that we sometimes call monkey wrench.

And what do you call it?

- [Alice] A hole in the barn door.

- [Georgia] Very good, very good.

Sharon, quite a variety of trees in yours.

All different plaids and a lot of texture in it.

And then you've done kind of an asymmetrical border in plaid.

What led to that?

- [Sharon] The plaid border, I wanted to represent from the houses.

We used plaid in the houses and when I was placing my houses, I found we had quite a bit of red.

So I tried to spot red throughout the quilt too.

- [Georgia] I think it works.

Now Marilyn, so unique.

The accent of white on the outside has brought all the windows out and and everything.

What made you turn to the... - Well, it's sort of a, a country quilt and I thought it needed a little picket fence to sort of close everything in.

I still have to add a couple of trees and things, but I really like the way that fence turned out.

- Well, you're almost ready to quilt, aren't you?

- Right.

- Caren, we love yours.

Especially the big border.

I think that's been the tip for a lot of the girls here.

What are you gonna do?

- Well, I chose the plaid border first because it had burgundy in it and that led me to do all the trees in various green plaids.

- The good news is it's completed and it's named.

Tell us about it.

- It's called a friendly village and I put it together and decided to put things in it that would be part of a friendly village, from the cows on the hillside to the kite in the corner and the little bird house and pretty flowers and trees and shrubs and just to make it a friendly village.

Don't forget the snow down there for all of our northern friends.

- Oh, there were.

There were two that had snow in them.

So I put the whole bottom row.

It's got little snow mounds in it and just add a nice little touch.

- It's cute as can be, Mary.

- Thank you.

- [Georgia] Gwen, we associate you with certain colors, particular things.

Tell us about that.

- Well, I really like green a lot and brown.

And I like pieced borders.

That's how I came up with the border I have.

I also like to find surprises in quilts, so I added a few of them too.

- [Georgia] It's very good.

Conni, we like your quilt, and I don't think any of us did a multi-piece border like you.

Tell us about it.

- Well, I had a lot of one and a half inch squares left over from another project and wanted to use those.

And I wanted something more of a wall hanging than a quilt for the bed.

- Joan, otherwise known as teacher's pets, sorry about that.

But we wanted you to tell us a little bit about your wall hanging.

And you've almost named it here.

- Well, they're just very special houses and it made a very special wall hanging because they're very special people.

- Oh, that's great, thanks.

And wouldn't you know ladies that Peggy, the one who didn't participate in our exchange, but you did use some donated blocks, ends up with the largest quilt.

Congratulations, it's really great.

Finally, my house quilt is quilted with the help of Shirley Henyon.

Just gazed at these unique houses, a variation of the checkerboard house from the "American Patchwork and Quilting" magazine, designer Mary Tindoll and Conni Tenson of Country Threads.

It's true, my smoke looks like Santa's boots stuck in the chimney and my mountains kind of stop short, but hey, it's a folk quilt.

Each quilter for this quilt repeatedly made her same house the number of times of the people in the group.

And then we exchanged.

Now for the twin to this quilt, and I call it house quilt number two, as you can see, it is in progress.

I turn the classic maple leaf pattern into a tree house quilt of sorts.

The dark stems become the accent just like the smoke.

Try this as another exchange program.

Select a quilt pattern.

In this case, we chose an eight inch house block.

Choose one dark fabric and one light fabric.

It took a 12 by 14 inch rectangle to cut out all the templates.

Then cut out each template in the block from the light and the dark fabric times the number of people in your group.

Pin them together in sets and then exchange.

You'll receive then a light and dark pair from each group.

Play with all that fabric.

It's only reasonable to figure out that a light and dark fabric will make the house.

But I like to meet the challenge of putting a different fabric in every template.

I made it, I think it made it real folky.

Notice that the house can be cut out without any templates, because all the rectangles just have the right angle.

So you're gonna be adding the 0.5.

For the triangles, go to those seam allowance rulers, because you'll just place your ruler on four.

The seam allowance is all built in.

Remember that hint about the chimney with the diagonal point here, that 45 degree angle, you can simply cut out your rectangle two and a half by four and seven eights.

Put the 45 degree angle on one side of my rectangle and then line up my ruler with the right angle of the cloth.

And then if I just cut that off, I have my chimneys all cut out without any templates.

The seam allowance is built in.

I'd like to give you a little hint about piecing.

Of course, you start the smallest pieces first.

And when you get ready to put this part of the house together, because you've got all these seam allowances underneath, you can either sew with your seam allowances on top, or I like to just have a nice swift seam here, but I make certain that I keep my stiletto handy and check every once in a while.

I also hold on to the end, so I've got that lined up perfectly.

And then as I'm sewing along, check to make sure, I quite often stop and peek.

Make sure that my seam allowance hasn't turned back, because that's kind of pesky to have to unstitch that.

Now what makes our both house quilts unique is that folded flying geese template that we did with the place mat.

I wanna show you that on the other machine.

Remember our folded flying geese as in the place mat, there's a seam underneath.

Well now these turn into trees that become the border of the house quilt number two, and accents for the other quilt.

How do you determine the rectangle to cut to go into this flying geese segment?

Well take the height of the finished background and cut out a rectangle.

You're going to add 0.5 to one side, then double the measurement and add 0.5.

So if this is three inches, I'm going to cut this out, three and a half by six and a half.

Fold it with the fold at the top and then align the raw edges at one corner.

Put the right sides together.

And then I'll just machine stitch this all the way from raw edge to raw edge.

Once I've completed that, I hold on to these corners when I open it and look what I've got.

A dimensional flying geese.

Now I turn this over and for pressing it, I quite often keep it folded and then come and open that up to get a nice open seam in the back.

And once that's open, then I will once again pull that out and I have my new tree.

Remember that it doesn't have to be based on two squares.

It can be based on a square and and a rectangle as I put in this side border for the house quilt number two.

With all the piece work and applique we have done so far in the series, it's time to consider quilting.

After all, the quilts haven't come to life yet.

It's that middle layer, the batting and the connection that create the shadows on the surface.

Let's check that out.

Since 1979, our show has been called "Lap Quilting", and we quite often think of that as making a quilt in sections.

Whether it's one block at a time, or whether it's long rows.

And then the backing has a flat lap seam in the back.

Once the fronts have been sewn together.

Well, I still make some quilts that way, but I still do lap quilting on a full quilt pieced top and the batting and backing together, I simply work on a supported lap hoop.

Now what we think most often about in quilting is the batting.

That middle section, it comes in such a variety today.

Batting that's polyester thick, cotton, cotton blends, and then a narrow or a thin polyester bat.

Consider the thickness of the batting for your tiny stitches.

You're going to get a much tighter and tinier stitch with a thin bat.

How are you going to mark those quilts and what happens next?

Quite often we mark a quilt top before we do the basting.

And a light box helps a lot.

You put your stencil on top, and quite often you have to mark with a heavy marker pen in order to let your print fabric see through.

Look at the array of stencils that we have today.

These are the designs that go on top of the quilt that allow us to quilt that surface.

Continuous quilting lines for the machine.

And then of course, the perforated stencils are very popular.

You'll want to have a collection of these, the fan, the feathers, the individual block designs.

These are some of Hollis Turnbows special designs.

Keep in mind that when the stencil opening stops, it doesn't mean you stop quilting.

Keep quilting there.

Now how do you mark those tops?

Well, I quite often use things like contact paper.

You can reuse it about five or six times and cut out your shapes and just put it on the top and follow the outside edge.

You will have pencils.

Sometimes they're silver or white.

A hara makes an indentation.

You'll have water soluble pens and then you'll have pencils.

Now, I've kept pencil for last, because we don't really like to mark with pencil unless you know that it will wash out easily.

Or you can take an eraser and get it out.

Keep a collection of masking tape in different widths.

And I keep in plastic bags because they collect little fibers.

My favorite tool is a chalk wheel.

I even like the sound it makes.

This is my sampler quilt that isn't quite done yet.

I have the borders to complete and I use this particular stencil on the entire quilt.

Now once it's basted, then I use this one section at a time because the chalk wheel rubs off so easily.

And that's actually an advantage because as I quilt it wears off.

So it's all marked.

And we'll do some quilting in just a minute.

What happens after you mark a quilt is the basting.

So you'll want to let me move this, a nice flat area for that.

And I quite often use a basting thread.

Goes a long way.

I use a spoon, a thimble, and a nice long needle.

And then I'm ready to do the basting.

And that little spoon just helps every time when you go down.

And then you've got a place to come up each time.

Makes it very nice.

This is well basted.

And I even have some these new clips that I use to kind of hold the layers together.

See how those come together.

And just snip right there.

I've got some steam coming out of the pots that I've done in contact paper, and I'll probably use, use masking tape on the inside of the pot.

I have a couple of tips I'd like to share with you about those old fashioned quilt tops.

This is a quilt called periwinkle.

It was made by my great-grandmother, and someday I'll finish it.

Look at the edges.

No one wants to put bias binding on all of those angles.

So I think what is really a good idea is to create a permanent edge on this quilt.

I've made a triangle template, and then with my old timey fabric, I'm simply gonna alternate pink and yellow all the way around the outside.

And it's okay to sew by machine.

She did it all by hand, but it's gonna be nice and strong.

Another problem we're faced with is the double wedding ring.

Now quite often quilts like this today are either put on a standard quilting frame or maybe a professional quilting machine.

And you'll wanna finish it with this soft scalloped edge with your binding.

But you need to put on what I call a temporary straight edge.

So measure the depth of your scallop.

Cut this piece, add about two inches, and then machine zigzag.

I've used a red thread here so you can see it just on the very edge.

Then take those lip scissors, the applique scissors, and cut away that excess, knowing that you can quilt out to the edge.

And then when it's all quilted, I will take my scissors and trim that oval and then put my binding on.

Now to do some quilting, our mantle today is pure folk, complete with an autograph quilt given to me by my Freedom Escape Ladies.

Now when I quilt and travel, I like to take a supported lap hoop with me.

It has a little wooden ratchet that allows me to loosen the little wing nut and it collapses and fits very nicely in my suitcase.

But I have recently discovered an easy spinner stand and an easy spinner support hoop that is just the answer.

I like this particular stand because it slips underneath my couch or my chair, and it has different levels that allow it to go up and down.

It's based on a ball joint in the bottom that allows it to swivel any way I want to.

And the hoops come in size 12 all the way to 26.

Now this one is for three friends to quilt in and I can lower it, bring the chairs up and tilt it any way I want.

I'd like to show you the scroll adapter that can go on this same stand.

This scroll frame works very nice on a self basting mechanism also for your crew and embroidery.

And it just fits right on the hexagon shaped top.

And by putting in the little hoop screw here and a couple of twists, you're all ready to do your quilting.

And notice how it'll turn any direction you'd like.

[upbeat music] The reason I prefer the 16 inch hoop is that from the tip of my fingers to my elbow, it's a perfect reach.

The support hoop has a base that fits right underneath your leg, and it works nice, also.

Mailbag.

Georgia, I'm curious, how do you count stitches per inch?

Do you count top only or top and bottom?

Well, this comes from Kay in Louisiana.

Kay just count the top stitches.

Not the space in between.

And you're gonna hope that it's just the same on the back.

Now I can usually get eight to nine stitches per inch and I hope you can too.

When I quilted this quilt, notice all the color of threads.

Well, I kept having a mess, so I found that ponytail rubber bands fit very snugly on these particular spools, and it keeps the threads from going awry.

Now take your thread, 18 to 20 inch, that short needle, and make a nice knot at the end.

And I do that with my full proof knot.

Slide it down, and then I'm ready to pull that knot through.

I still prefer that indented thimble.

I find that the eye is simply caught right there as I'm going up and down.

I like to have the needle coming towards me.

And the minute that needle comes up, I go right back down again.

Do you see how underneath I'm making that well that every time I'm going up and down, and you'll find that some days are better than others for getting nice tiny stitches.

I'm still searching for that perfect device underneath, but I still seem to go back to my two fingers.

This is the part I like, especially when I can join my husband at night and just relax and connect those three layers.

We will see you next time on "Lap Quilting", where we have two shows in one, Christmas and Garments Galore.

See you then, and thanks for watching today.

[upbeat music] ♪ Could you imagine a more clever object ♪ ♪ Warms the body, ignites the mind ♪ ♪ A child sleeps under mother's creation ♪ ♪ Together forever ♪ ♪ The art of the heart ♪ ♪ and design of the mind ♪ ♪ puts you to bed ♪ ♪ one day at a time ♪ ♪ The art of the heart ♪ ♪ and design of the mind ♪ - [Announcer] "Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel" is made possible in part by grants from Leisure Arts, publisher and distributor of needlework and craft publications, including an assortment of quilt books and related products.

By VIP Fabrics, a division of Cranston Printworks Company, America's oldest textile printer.

Additional funding by Omnigrid, the original patented black and yellow ruler, and by Bernina, delivering sewing technology and education to sewers worldwide.