- Ah, the calicos are in bloom.

Enjoy the beauty of flowers that come from fabric as we learn all about foundation piecing today, then meet El Dico Francois from France to view her award-winning flower quilt that's based on an orchid.

♪ Could you imagine a more clever object ♪ ♪ Warms a 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.

- "Flowers Along the Trail" is the name of this wall hanging.

Montana wildflowers frame the scenic western rendition of a rider at sunset.

Now this is a joint teaching project with Charlotte War Anderson for our nine quarter Circle Ranch class.

Charlotte, you remember, is the author of the book "Faces & Places," and she's known for these beautiful, realistic settings that she does in wall hangings and quilts.

Now the diamonds that I have designed for the border are the Indian paintbrush, the sticky geranium, the wild lupine, and the prairie thistle.

The prairie thistle is the one the horses eat always on the trail.

These diamonds, the 45-degree diamond, can be placed into an eight-pointed star as in this Le Moines star block.

It's in quilting progress.

And on one of our forthcoming shows, I'm gonna have a chance to tell you about the great new quilting frames that I've been using for quilting on my lap right in my favorite chair.

But for now, we need to go to the drafting board to understand how this all begins on paper.

Before that drafting exercise, I'd like to reminisce a bit and go all the way back to 1987 when we did the "Madris Madness" quilt.

And this time, it's a ultimate Christmas quilt done by Phyllis Moisten on that foundation paper, a 19-inch square where you sew right on the paper top using these extended lines as a guide.

Now she has a few more papers to rip out from the backside, but I would like to note that her angle cuts were made on the bias.

So when she's putting these in on the sides, when the paper's ripped out, they will be parallel.

The grain lines will be parallel to the outside edge of the quilt.

Well, then I blinked and look what happened in foundation piecing.

"Mariner's Compass" has never looked more stunning than in this foundation pieced quilt.

Just dynamic.

All of these works can be followed in three books, "Perfect Pineapple," "Precision Piecing," and now "Firm Foundations," done by Jane Hall and Dixie Haywood.

Look at two other variations, blue on blue with muslin added.

And then introduction of green, all based on the pineapple design.

[upbeat guitar music] Betty Kirby from Florida left a note.

"Georgia, met you in Las Vegas a few years back.

Remember, I thought meeting you was better than meeting Elvis.

Well, she said she's also looking for an eight-pointed star pattern."

Perhaps they aren't so easy to find because everyone's using their rulers today to design those.

And because of all the Montana wildflowers, were based on a 45-degree diamond, six inches from here to here.

We're going to have a little drafting lesson here.

I've simply drawn a straight line and measured six inches.

Then, using the 45-degree angle on my ruler, can you see that?

I'm simply lining that up with that straight line.

That allows me to draw from that mark all the way down and then measure six inches all the way down.

Once I have that mark, I'll swing around and then draw another six inches to right here and then come up and let those meet from here to here.

And once those have met, I have my perfect diamond.

So it was in the confines of this 45-degree diamond that I did all my wildflower drafting.

Then, of course, it had to be set into an eight-pointed star.

I needed a square and a triangle to complete that.

Four squares and four triangles.

Well, if it's six inches from here to here, I know I'm cutting out a six and a half inch square, four of them.

Then, the diagonal here is going to be one of those measurements that we have learned.

From six inches here, I would put down six times 1.414 equals 8.48, which let's say eight and a half.

So I know if I add plus 1.25, that's gonna equal 9.73.

Probably nine and three quarters would be the perfect size square to cut.

And then cutting that on the diagonal two ways, I would have the perfect four triangles with a stray of the grain on the outside to go into my square.

This ends up being a 20 and a half-inch block.

Now, I could also use my ruler that has the seam allowances included.

And this time, I'd go to, what, eight and a half and place that on the straight of the grain.

A closer look at the drafting of each of these diamonds will reveal a few secrets.

For instance, the sticky geranium.

Note that the image is reversed, and that's because you are placing the fabric on the non-printed side, allowing you to sew on those lines that are printed.

When I did the prairie thistle, I wasn't happy with the design.

The applique accent just didn't fit in, so I redesigned it.

And this way, it's all pieced.

When it comes to the wild lupine, it's done in two sections, and quite often, that happens so that when they're sewn together, you have a stem going all the way down the flower.

And then for the Indian paintbrush, there are three sections.

I quite often add this little hint here to add seam allowance, which gives you that extra to put your sections together.

Now for the advantages to this particular system, it's very accurate piece work with the lines to follow.

And then more difficult patterns can be attempted.

There are no templates to cut.

The bias edges are stabilized once the blocks are sewn together.

There's a total disregard for all sorts of grain line.

But once your sections are put together, you would then tear off the paper.

If using muslin or lightweight interfacing, there's no need to tear off the backing.

Some patterns come printed on muslin or you can draw your own.

And then the interfacing is very lightweight.

Why, we've discovered that you can even put it through the copy machine once.

Sometimes it's been pressed onto freezer paper.

There are all sorts of paper available today, special papers that are coming out for foundation piecing.

Then another hint is to put a heavy duty old needle on your sewing machine and stack all of your shapes with unprinted newsprint and simply sew through exactly on the line.

And look how you've perforated the line.

It makes it easier to tear off the paper on your last step.

There's very little quilting that is necessary since with small piece work, there just is not much room.

So many original new designs are now available, already printed on paper in packages.

For instance, the Zippy Designs has this circling crows pattern.

Very effective.

Notice that the designs are already sewn on this side and printed on the reverse side.

And the corners are not done.

We'll be doing that at the sewing machine in a few minutes.

This particular company even has a journal or a magazine out called "The Foundation Piecer."

The disadvantages, it can be pesky and frustrating until you learn the system.

It uses a lot more fabric.

There is some waste.

The order of sewing must be followed or you'll be un-stitching a lot.

It's a very messy process.

Removing the paper can be time consuming and directional fabric takes planning ahead, pinning and peaking.

Now the most important step I can tell you is to start simple.

Rita Wax, a member of my guild who's done a lot more piecing on paper than I have, liked this very simple pattern as a beginning design.

Why, it's nothing more than a square on point with triangles that are sewn and flipped.

But with the paper to follow, she's very sure to come out with accurate squares each time.

And then from there, Rita's gone to more complicated designs.

I'd like to share with you a couple of her things.

One is a little Christmas tree wall hanging done with just strips, but following a paper.

Then Rita got a little more adventurous with this nautical quilt.

Every little block is paper pieced.

Let's go to the sewing machine and do that paper piecing.

Now to machine piece on foundation for each of our diamonds.

Where do you begin?

Well, your selection of fabric once the designs are marked.

I chose some sky, four shades of blue for my background diamonds, all my fun pastels and bright pinks, and some green for the stems.

Then you'll want to downgrade your cutting tools.

Go to a smaller cutter, smaller mat, narrow rulers, a glue stick really helps, neutral thread on your machine, and a light box is a great advantage.

We're gonna start with the prairie thistle, and I've put a little glue stick on the back of my lavender.

And I like to find that first sewing line.

If this is A1, then I know A2 is my green.

And I'll quite often just bend that back and crease the fabric because that allows me to take my raw edge right here and put the raw edge here, knowing that it's gonna be flipped back.

And I wanna make sure that that green is covering all of that triangle underneath.

Remember, your printing is up, so I can use that as a guide for stitching.

So once I have that in mind, and I think I'm pretty safe there, I can then, holding it pretty securely, go to do my stitching.

Now I will turn my stitching as tight as I can, which is probably about 15 to 18 stitches per inch.

And what that does is help to perforate the, I'm gonna make it a little bit narrower, that is gonna help to perforate that line and makes it easier for your paper to be removed.

So once I've gone all the way to there, and I don't need to back stitch when I'm doing it so tight, I'm then ready to come, and pulling my paper back and with my see-through ruler, making sure that I have the raw edge of the green and my lavender, come and cut that and do a nice quarter inch.

Some people even go a little narrower.

So then I'm ready to come and bring that green back.

And here is where I like to just give a little shot with the iron and get it nice and flat right there.

So then I know I'm ready to come and put the next one on.

And that's gonna be my sky.

I like to get rid of all these extra threads while I'm stitching.

And now I wanna put my sky on.

And I don't even worry about my grain line.

I know there's a right and wrong to my sky, but I really don't worry about grain.

Come on that line and mark it right there, that I'm coming, put the two right sides together.

But the clue is that I have a straight edge to put here and that when I flip that, that this blue comes all the way out to the paper.

I don't wanna get up the creek and not have enough cloth to come out to my paper.

So I would continue with the prairie thistle, knowing it's gonna be in two parts.

I get one part done and then the next.

And now, our next one is the Indian paintbrush.

And it starts at the top.

Notice that you've got a one and then a two.

So I'd simply, with my top pattern, I would simply come and place my red, knowing that it was coming all the way up, and then I'm going to come to number two.

And here's where a light box comes in handy.

So that I'm placing it on the back side, knowing that I'm gonna come like this, and I'm gonna put my, find where my number two goes.

Over here.

Come place this here so that I can see all the way through that.

I've got that yellow coming all the way up.

Then I'm ready to sew on this side.

So I come and make sure my red's all the way to the tip.

That's the clue right there, that I'm covering all the red.

Now I'm sewing on that line again.

I'm not gonna backstitch because my stitches are so tiny.

And once I've gotten my threads cut, I think it's very important to make sure that this comes all the way back.

And when you crease that, it also helps to make it easier for the paper to come off at the end.

Now I'm ready to trim that and then I'm ready to, with the red in place, bring the gold back.

And I think right from the very beginning, to get the essence of your diamond, I will quite often go ahead and trim.

Do you see how the seam allowance is built in here?

So I'll trim that off there and there.

It's kind of nice to see your diamond starting to progress.

But don't be worried if you have this big hunk hanging on.

It's not till you come over here, the three and then the four, that you'll probably cut that off.

Now, your wild lupine is in two sections, remember?

So we'd start with one half first, and in this case, you're starting with sky first.

So you'd put, and it's coming down.

10 is actually the last one you do.

So you'd come in, line up your sky underneath, and once again, a little bit of glue stick is gonna anchor that in place.

Just a little tap ready to go there.

I'm so used to worrying about grain line that it just amazes me that you can just put it on anywhere.

And then you're getting ready to do your blue again.

And you can crease it to find where that goes, put the two right sides together.

And with this big hunk, I know I'm ready to start stitching.

So then I'm ready to do my stitching again.

And this time, it's not all the way out to the outside edge.

I'm starting on the inside.

So I'm doing just a little bit.

And stop.

And some of the pieces do get very tiny.

As you can see here, that's a very tiny piece.

Once I'm coming here, you can do the little thumb creasing there that really helps to anchor it.

But the important thing is to trim off that excess at this point.

And I don't trim unless my paper is all the way back.

Do you see how that paper has to be all the way back?

Okay, paper's all the way back.

And sometimes you can get really turned around here.

And then you're ready to trim.

Now you're ready to bring this back.

And with your iron, give yourself the stability of that extra point going down.

So then where do I go from here?

One, two, and now I'll have more sky.

So then you'll be able to line this up again.

And here's where I come to the light box to see that coming through there.

And I'm ready to place that on before I do my sewing again.

Now, when it comes to sticky geranium, I sometimes turn to the freezer paper or the grid grip because I found that if I went ahead and simply made from my original design, made a template, I could cut these out, include my seam allowance, and that allowed me, in this case, to go ahead and then simply add my excess blue fabric on each side.

And it made it a lot easier with the template already cut out because I would pull this off and place it directly on here.

I knew it was going to be perfect.

So I could simply place it on there and then sew through with my blue.

I would've had the seam allowance built in on all of those sides.

What about that muslin piecing?

Well, here's the little kitty cat, and I think you'd enjoy seeing that.

I mean, we have the tiniest ears in the world here, but it started at number one, two, three, and ended here at four.

And then we've got to come with part of his body.

And there's a little hint here.

Sometimes you need to piece a section separately before it comes on here and sews and flip.

Well, I got this all lined up, got ready to pull my cloth back to do my see-through ruler.

And I thought, well, before I cut that, maybe I need to check and make sure this came all the way over.

Well, I'm a little bit short.

You see, that should've come all the way over to here.

Instead, it comes to right here.

So my mistake was that when I positioned this, I had too much of a seam allowance.

I should've pinned it a little bit over.

So when I pulled this back, it would've been further.

And here's where you're not gonna be too happy to rip out all of that.

But that's how that would be done.

And then it has a tail over here, and that's piecing on the muslin foundation.

When you're doing a long line, keep in mind that quite often, an accumulation will occur up here, and sometimes that can be a problem.

There are times in paper piecing where you wanna position the straight of the grain fabric.

Remember the corners in "Circling Crows" that we had not completed.

I wanted that border print to be just like this on each one of the corners.

So what I did was to get this far with my pink and stripe and then fold where that seam is going to be.

Once I have that indention made, then I'll come and position exactly how I want my fabric to end up.

Then, holding that in place, I'll turn that under, in other words, crease, so I can line that up exactly with that position where it was creased before.

And if I'm satisfied with that, knowing I've got that lined up, I will come with one of my flathead pins and really anchor that through the paper so then I'm ready to do my machine stitching.

And that flathead pin is very nice.

It will just stay in place and hold that so that I can come all the way down.

When I'm stitching, I go all the way out to the raw edge.

Some people stop at that quarter inch, but I like to come all the way out.

Once that's done, I can then remove my pin, and coming over here to my cutting mat again and with my paper all the way back and the two edges here, then I'm ready to come and clean up the excess.

Come just like that.

And of course, you can't really cut this until you come here and do your pressing all the way down.

And then you're ready to have your straight edge all the way lined up with your block.

And I think that works very nice to go in the corner of that quilt.

[upbeat guitar music] Now, for more flowers, we need to go on the road to France.

Meet El Dico Francois.

It is so nice to see your beautiful quilt, especially with a ribbon.

Tell us about your quilt, the name of it, and a little bit of how you made it.

- So it's called "Captive Orchids" because they are all shut into squares.

Well, first of all, I drew it all because I wanted to paint it on silk.

I painted it all on silk and then I cut out all the flowers and I appliqued it onto the background.

And the background I did with what they call heliography, which is an imprint made with the sun.

So I had some dried orchids because I used to live in Venezuela.

And every time you had guests, they sent you a bunch of orchids and I could never bear to, you know, just throw them away.

So I dried them and I used it on this.

And I also have my own collection of orchids, and they were just all in bloom, so I could use them as a model to draw the orchids.

- [Georgia] It is a lovely nature scene.

You've really captured it in such beautiful colors.

And you have some relief in the design too, don't you?

- Yes.

So that, I made what they call pillow applique, which I got out of an American magazine called "Threads."

- Yes.

- You know?

- [Announcer] Yes.

- All my learning, I do through American magazines.

So "Threads" had an article about pillow applique.

So you double, you know, the flower.

And then I used thin wire that I did the setting stitch over thin wire so you can move it around as you want it.

- [Georgia] Have you been quilt making for a long time?

- [El Dico] No, only two years.

- [Georgia] Well, that gives us all hope if you can do something like that.

What do you see in the future for yourself?

Do you have more ideas?

- Yes.

Well, my biggest ambition in life is to expose at the Quilt National in Ohio.

- [Georgia] We are familiar with the Dairy Barn, so we look forward to seeing your quilt there.

Thank you so much, El Dico.

- [El Dico] Thank you, Georgia.

- This show has been "Springtime Flowers."

Next time, "Summertime Stitches."

I like the fact that our paper piecing, part of it can go into a new wall hanging.

So I've taken the top part of the Indian paintbrush and put it into corn stalks.

Next time on "Lap Quilting," we'll do the corn and beans quilt.

♪ Could you imagine a more clever object ♪ ♪ Warms a 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.