- [Georgia] Southern France.

Rich farmland, haunting rock formations, and impressive Roman ruins.

But we went there to discover the tradition and history of printed fabrics in Provence.

Join us at Souleiado.

[pleasant guitar 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 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 Print Works 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.

- How else would you begin our shows on France than with our mantle decorated with good wine, good cheese, the best bread in the world, and even sunflowers?

We invite you today to celebrate colorful prints from France.

Southwest of Avignon in the town of Tarascon is the Souleiado Company Museum.

Cottons brought by ships from India to France during the 17th century once threatened France's traditional silk and wool industries with all of their popularity.

So for years they were banned.

Now French Calico survives thanks to the Demery family, Christiana, Rajeen, and Jean Pierre, who operate Souleiado, offering decorative floral fabrics.

Their offices are housed in a historic limestone building.

I ask Jean Pierre, what does Souleiado mean?

- It means trouser cloud.

The sun come after the rain.

Always the happy, happy [speaks French].

- [Translator] Then happiness.

- The happiness is coming after the rains.

- [Georgia] Well, we are happy to be here.

Your museum and the company is so exciting for us as quilters and fabric lovers.

What about your fabric?

How did it all begin and who started this company?

- [Jean Pierre] It is a third generation.

My father comes in 1939, and the uncle of my father in the beginning of century buy the old, old factory.

- [Georgia] Now in this factory, 40,000 hand-carved blocks were discovered which had been used to ink cottons for Provencal garments during the 18th and the 19th centuries.

Revival began with the founder, Charles Demery.

The blocks are made of fruit wood, particularly pear wood.

Some are all wood, some have copper, and some have lead on them.

Today these ancient blocks are preserved and used for printing, but not in the same way.

The modern world has stepped in.

They go from the scanner to the computer, from the 18th century to the 21st century.

But you can still watch the authentic technique of wood blocks on the museum tour.

One has to call ahead for an appointment, but it is well worth the effort.

Just watch the tedious repeat process of the wood blocks.

[worker speaks French] [hand pounds] - [Georgia] There are little points at the edge of the block which enable the printer to print in a straight line.

In order that the color be uniform, he pats down with the mallet, but not on the heavy side, on the reverse side, so that the pressure is equal everywhere on the cloth.

Everything is from an original design.

Even if there's a flaw in the block, it goes to the computer too.

[hand pounding] Another intriguing room in the Souleiado Museum is the dye room called the Kitchen.

The formulas are called recipes, complete with a recipe book.

Jean Pierre comments on the color used in Souleiado fabrics.

- [Jean Pierre] The colors, you have the blue of the sky, you have the green for the leaf trees, you have the black of the bull, you have the yellow of the flow of the [speaks French] - [Georgia] Yes.

- We find it in the natural all the colors.

Souleiado in the beginning want only material.

Now is a art of life.

We have a [speaks French] We have a wine Souleiado.

We have a wallpaper.

We have all the thing will give you happy.

- [Georgia] Working closely with Jean Pierre is Christiana, his sister.

She shared some insight on her role with the company.

- I take care of all the export department and mostly United States, and I travel a lot.

And so it helped me to bring in a lot of ideas.

And I have an exterior eye on what we do here.

- Yes, very good.

And I know you're very proud being so involved in it.

- Yes, I'm proud of what I do.

We spend our life for Souleiado, and it's fascinating to work with.

I could not work for just a regular textile company.

I would not do that.

But working for Souleiado brings more.

- [Georgia] In one room, there were mannequins dressed in dated styles with earlier printed fabrics.

I pondered maybe styles worn even in my mother's era.

Across from that display was a Lacroix exhibit.

- [Christiana] You were impressed, yeah.

We're friend with Christian Lacroix, because you know, he's from Provence, and he did so many beautiful thing with Provence, that we are in the same group of people.

And we were very happy when we opened our museum that he came to see us and did a beautiful design in our books, and we are proud of our friendship with him.

- And you were saying to me how lucky you feel to be in Provence.

- Yes, we are lucky because we are in a beautiful country.

So we have a lot of people from outside, a lot of visitors coming, and after they become our friends.

And it's a wonderful way of communicating, because if you deal just in the textile business, you do always the same thing.

And we are lucky we have now museum, we have beautiful people coming.

We try to sell kind of [speaks French] around the fabric.

- We are very, very happy to be here today.

They've been so kind, so kind.

I wanted to talk to you about patchwork and quilting.

Part of our day at Souleiado was spent in a sharing of American patchwork.

My niece, Megan Moore, assisted in translating.

[chatter] - And it will stay in order to sew next.

As quilters are able to.

The French women were so eager to learn and were especially taken with the easy-does-it bow-tie method.

They were frantic to even sketch each step on paper.

[chatter] - Ukrainian dolls, do they know the Ukrainian dolls that pull apart and stack?

Finally I got them to watch some applique.

Drop the feed dog.

Yeah, drop feed dog and write on the machine.

It's only natural that we would study applique now because it is a French word, meaning to layer or to put on.

This particular quilt pattern in progress are nine blocks from the quilt called Romance of the Roses.

It was by Penny Workman in one of my earlier books, "More Lap Quilting."

I've always wanted to make this quilt.

And now with these nine techniques, you can choose one and try your favorite or try 'em all.

Sometimes applique patterns are printed on freezer paper today, which makes it very nice.

I've had this particular pattern printed.

And our most popular method for applique seems to be freezer paper.

Let's look at the three methods.

The first one is the poly-coated side pressed to the backside of your fabric.

In this case, you would snip the concave curves.

Press the raw edges, the seam allowance over the paper, and then with your long needle and thread, applique each little figure in place.

Make certain that you press a right angle into your foundation to begin with, and probably with a light box and your pattern underneath, you can position each of your applique figures.

The second method would be leaving the poly-coated side up so that the raw edges, the seam allowances are then pressed onto the paper.

Then you would be able to needle turn in place.

It's already in place, and you're just grabbing that turned under edge.

Both of these methods require snipping on the foundation underneath to remove that freezer paper.

Once the paper is moistened, it comes out even easier, but you might use a stiletto to release it.

The last way and probably the method not used too often, but a very swift and easy method would be to simply keep the paper on top.

This allows you to see your raw edge, the folded edge, and turn the raw edge under.

It works very nicely.

The paper does loosen up, so you need to keep an iron handy.

Just the warmth of your hand will make it come loose a little bit, but it works very nicely.

I'd like to review the applique method with you for just a minute.

Now, there are really two ways of doing it.

It's the same process, but some people like to start at the backside by looking over the fold.

And in that case, you pull up your thread right in that turn and you put your needle in right underneath where the thread has come up.

Here's my thread.

I've chosen a pink thread so you can see it against this green.

Actually, I hope you can't see it.

That means I'm doing a good applique stitch.

But where the thread has come up, I put the needle right underneath that, and then it's a little expanse, oh, less than a quarter of an inch.

I come right up.

Some people put the needle in just a little bit behind where that thread has come up, and everyone has their own special way of doing it.

But you will know that when you look on the backside, you're just catching the fold, that you see long stitches on the back.

Now, another way of doing it would be to look into what we call the well.

In other words, I'm going in the opposite, I'm going in the same direction, but the opposite side of my fold.

Now, I'm looking in.

Do you see how I'm looking into that fold?

And so I can actually see the needle go down and then pull my thread up.

Needle is in the fold and I come down right.

I'm using a single thread.

I'm coming down right underneath.

So try each of these methods and see which one appeals to you the most.

The important thing is that you wanna secure your figure on your foundation.

Embroidery purse is another applique method.

We associate that name with chintz quilts from long ago, and that was the finishing techniques on the cutout.

It can be done on a raw edge or a turned under edge.

I quite often stabilize that fabric with spray sizing, or you can use a little bit of glue stick underneath.

But I like the raw edge method.

Once it's secured, it's not going anywhere.

You use your long needle once again in a fine thread, and the buttonhole stitch, the straight line of the buttonhole can be on the outside.

Some people like to reverse it, and we try that on the machine sometime, because it will reverse so nicely.

But it's just a buttonhole stitch holding it in place, and you can go as close together as you like.

Of course, the closer, the longer it's gonna take.

The fifth method uses the exposed running stitch along with some leftover or used dryer sheets, the kind of thing that you put in your dryer at home.

Now, the French people don't have these dryer sheets, so they found this most curious.

Two things I'd like to point out in this particular method.

You put the right sides of your applique figure to the dryer sheet, and then you just machine stitch with a very narrow seam allowance all the way around.

Cut it out, and then you'll take your scissors and slit the back.

You can go right down the center of this.

Of course not going through to your figure, but just slit the back.

And when you turn it right side out, of course there's my slit.

Look at the nice figure that you have.

It needs a little finger work around, but I really like that method.

That's how I did this entire block.

And then I have just used my single strand of thread, and I do a running stitch right next to that turned under edge.

And I of course would use a companion thread, something that matches.

I think that leaves a very nice finish.

I really like the finish on the machine satin stitching technique.

It's just a matter of placing your templates on the right side of your fabric.

Now, remember if you're doing mirror images, you will put two wrong sides together so you are cutting out duplicates.

And then I would even use the rotary cutter to just cut around the figure.

Give yourself, oh, quarter inch seam allowance.

Then place that figure on your foundation, and with a straight line of stitching, go as close to the paper as you can.

Now, you'll want to reuse your paper, so don't stitch the paper.

Then with your lip applique scissors, you can cut away that excess.

Now, I have discovered even a narrower and tinier little lip scissors.

Aren't those wonderful?

And I quite often hold onto the paper, it stabilizes it while I get very close to that machine stitching.

Then I remove that, and once that's removed, I'm ready to put a stabilizer underneath my figure.

It can either be tear-away or just newsprint that's been unprinted.

When that's there for a stabilizer, I'm ready to test my satin stitch.

And I quite often keep the sample, put the settings that I'm happy with here and just keep it with the project.

Actually, it's a good reason to have two machines in your room, because I'll just keep this all set with the same thread.

I like to use a cotton very fine thread for my machine satin stitching.

And when you get started to begin with, you might want to pull that one bobbin thread up, maybe that you're worried about that getting caught.

So I pull that up, and on this particular machine I thread the finger in the bobbin.

So it's pulling those stitches around.

And now I'm ready to do my satin stitching, knowing that it's covering not only that straight line, but it's also going into my foundation.

When I come around to the corner, I wanna make certain that I have stopped.

And I can even go narrower here if I want to.

If I want to start going narrow down to that point, it makes it very nice.

But when I get to that very pointed end, I can.

Let me see if I'm down there, yes.

Needle in the machine and then I'm ready to turn again.

Sometimes it's just one or two stitches there, needle in, and then I'm ready to start lengthening that stitch a little bit.

I think you'll be very happy with your satin stitch.

See how nicely that covered?

Many of you do a blind hem stitch on your sewing machine.

I like to use an edge foot stitch.

It has a little ledge against it, so it allows that turned under edge to butt right up next to it.

With that foot on and the proper settings, now, it means moving the needle over just a little bit to the left.

It also means having a very narrow zigzag, because you'll just do one.

And with a clear thread, either a dark or a light.

Now, I'm using a white today so you can see it a little bit more, but you'll get such a nice finish, and that straight stitching is very close to the turned under edge.

I've done just a sample so you can see the results.

That hand-embroidery purse that we did can also be done on the sewing machine.

It's a matter of just accommodating the right setting and making certain that when the needle is dropped, you can turn to accommodate... those scallops on this particular pattern.

Notice that my straight edge of the buttonhole is on the outside edge.

Now if I wanted to, I can even go to a reverse or a method where I can now have that straight line on the inside.

Some people like that technique.

Then I tried an applique method that just failed.

Maybe you can work this out, but I thought it was a good idea.

With my design printed on paper, on freezer paper, I pressed it lightly on my foundation, and then I took all my fabric with the right side up, placed it underneath the design, stitched through my paper, then pulled it off and then cut away.

So then I'd have to do my satin stitching through here.

Well, it just ended up being too much trouble, so I'm saving that for an experiment that didn't quite work out.

I taught the French women applique at Souleiado, but then we switched roles and I learned the Boutis method, something we explore more next time on "Lap Quilting."

It's an unusual way to do trapunto that has been a part of the French heritage.

Now, look for Boutis as we view some historic garments.

Yes, there is more Souleiado.

Meet Elizabeth Ferial.

Her translator and our tour guide is Alice Julliard.

They show us some of the historic garments at the museum, and we will then get to see some quilts!

[Elizabeth speaking French] - [Translator] This is an outfit worn by a wash woman.

Here you have a good example of patchwork.

The skirt was worn out, and from time to time, the different pieces of fabric were replaced and sewn on.

Here we have an example again of late 18th century.

We know this because the green has since faded to blue.

Here we have an example of a wedding petticoat.

You see two types of quilting done in Provence, one called the [speaks French] and the other called the Boutis.

Here we have the bride's initials.

Here we have an example of a maternity outfit of the early 19th century.

We see two types of quilting.

One called [speaks French] in the body of the skirt.

Around the bottom of the skirt is called [speaks French] The waistline is gathered along a cord, as well as the top.

The color is called [speaks French] - Standing in this red room, Alice, I am in awe of the number of quilts.

That means that there was a quilt history in France.

- Yes, many Americans think that quilting and patchwork is American, but actually it does have European origins.

We have quilts from different time eras in this room.

As you can see over here, these date from the 18th century.

We know this because here we see that some of the colors have faded.

In particular, what once was green has now turned blue.

This is because the yellow of the sunflower roots did not stick well to the fabric.

Over here, this is a typical design that you find in Provence, which is very busy.

In other areas such as Lyon, farther north, you see that the design is less busy.

Same style, but more solid color.

- [Georgia] I do recognize, however, some American cross hatch quilting.

What would be the batting or the wadding inside?

- [Alice] I think it was probably a mixture of cotton and wool.

- [Georgia] And from there, as we go on in the centuries, what's next?

- [Alice] Over here we have examples of the 19th century.

We do have patchwork.

We have what we call the Postage Stamp on the right.

Above that, we see a design which is similar to what we call the Log Cabin design in the United States.

- Well, we have to ask you, what is this wooden cabinet on the wall?

We see this occur quite often in homes and in restaurants.

- Yes, many people in their homes in Provence have what we call a [speaks French] or a [speaks French].

This is where we would put the bread and other foods such as cheese so that the cats wouldn't get to them.

- [Georgia] Aha.

Next time we travel from Tarascon to Lyon, France, where a quilt expo takes place.

Meet Shirley Herzer, one of the international teachers at the Expo.

And guess what?

She likes applique too.

How long have you been quilting, Shirley, and what got you into this field?

- I've been quilting extensively since 1983, but I come from a quilters family.

My mother quilts, quilted.

My both grandmothers, all my sisters.

So I actually started when the man from the adult educational school asked me to teach a course on quilting and patchwork.

And so I asked my mother to send me a book.

And it was your book.

- Oh, how nice, how nice.

- Yes.

I think it was the one on lap quilting.

And that's how I got started.

- [Georgia] Well, that's great.

- And I planned to have one course and quit, and I've been doing it ever since.

- [Georgia] Well, do you have a certain direction that you go in quilt making?

- [Shirley] Well, I have a lot of people in my classes, and they always want to have something new.

So I've been trying to learn several kinds of techniques, but what I really like best is applique.

That's my favorite.

- [Georgia] I understand quilting is really growing in your country.

Is there a word for quilts in German?

- No.

We say quilts, and it's a foreign word for a German.

So it's mistaken several times.

- [Georgia] Well, I suppose you do have quilt shows there.

Yes.

- Let me tell you about the quilt show we just had in Alzey in November.

The people were very enthused, and people don't know what the word quilt means.

And so the reporter who wrote the article, was a very nice article, actually, published it, and he was so enthused with the show.

And then the headline for the article said, "Quilts don't only look good on Scottish men."

- [Georgia] Oh, they thought it meant "kilt".

- They thought it meant it was a kilt.

♪ Together forever ♪ ♪ The art of the heart and design of the mind ♪ ♪ Puts you to bed one day at a time ♪ ♪ The art of 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 Print Works 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.