[upbeat music] [upbeat country music] - Welcome back to "Lap Quilting."

I'm Georgia Bonesteel, inviting you for another series on patchwork and quilting.

But before we thread the needle or even sow one stitch, I wanna take this opportunity to thank all of you for the wonderful response that we got from our first series.

Your ideas and your suggestions were warmly received and we certainly appreciate the time you spent writing.

For those of you that had personal questions, I did the best I could to answer your quilt problems.

I'd like to share a few of the letters with you to give you an idea of what people wrote.

From a Viola Lunsford in Roxboro, North Carolina.

"Dear Mrs. Bonesteel, you have made an old lady very happy.

Your TV course in lap quilting was fascinating.

I have made one quilt, and have almost finished my second one.

All during the bad winter days, I had something interesting to do indoors.

Thanks to you again."

From Mrs. Phyllis Clark in Charlotte, "I was thrilled a chance upon this program offered on a snowy Sunday afternoon.

The warm and attractive designs gave a promise of better things to come."

And then from an Anne Black who signs her long letter, "Quilting yours from Knoxville, North Carolina," She writes, "Today would be a perfect day for lap quilting.

We measured 12 inches of snow on level ground this morning."

And she goes on to say that, "Sewing is my creative outlet.

Mama was an artist.

Oh, how I wish I could draw, but my daughter shows lot of interest and ability in drawing."

And she goes on to say that she has several pillows and wall hangings already promised for gifts and family and special friends.

A favorite letter of mine from Wilmington, this is from June Williams.

She has six or eight good friends who have been watching along with herself and she claims that for her it it's been the answer to her prayers.

"I like to quilt pillow tops and I've always quilted without a frame.

But after being laughed at a number of times, I took to the privacy of my den to do my thing all the while I was doing lap quilting and I didn't even know it.

I love it very much."

And then from Peggy Nichols, she has written a short note and says that, with lap quilting, she can carry it around.

She's looking forward to all the lessons and she watches it twice a week.

And here's a lady that's been quilting for 20 years and she was glad to update her methods.

I even received a letter from a man.

This is interesting, Adrian McCafferty.

And he says, "By the way, I'm a male and this is the first quilting I have done since helping my mother quilt when I was a teenage boy.

Quilting is such good therapy and I highly recommend it for men as well as for women."

So regardless whether you are just married and making your first quilt and just starting your home, maybe you have ideas of perhaps teaching quilting and you want to just learn everything there is.

Maybe you work full-time and you have found this good therapy, a way to relax.

Whatever your reasoning, I hope that these techniques will open up a whole new door of quilting for you.

I'd like you to really explore your newsstand, your library, haunt your library, look at the attic in your own house.

Perhaps you can find ideas there.

Each time, and even take a class, whatever craft you pursue from another teacher because you're going to end up with your own unique style and each time that this happens, it will encourage you to go on.

I hope that you will realize that this will gain you more confidence.

I also realize that with quilting there is what we call finger piecing or handwork.

And some people look as a quilt as not been a true quilt unless it's been finger pieced.

All the things that I teach can be done by hand and please be my guest if you'd like to.

I always have felt that if great-grandmother had had a sewing machine, she probably would've used it.

And I feel that putting the blocks together on the machine helps it to go faster and also makes it stronger.

There was a period in the history of our quilting when we of course had to do everything by hand and when the sewing machine just came into vogue, I think it's interesting to look at this old quilt.

It has been finger pieced, but yet machine quilted, and this was a way for this homemaker of saying, look, I now have a sewing machine and I'm going to quilt it on the machine.

Keep in mind that it would be nice to have a paper and pencil handy when we start each show.

There are a lot of ideas and I realize there's so much to cover that this way it'll kind of help you keep track.

One thing you might wanna do is to make yourself a scrapbook.

Of course it could be a photo album of your family.

In this case, as a teacher, I save ideas and put everything in here and students bring me ideas and we just kind of accumulate.

I also take pictures of all my students work and it's one way of compiling everything together.

It was just a scrap book that I bought.

And then of course you remember our King's X, one of our basic four patches.

I've simply quilted it, put a back on it and have left one side open and then I've like a pillowcase, simply pulled it through and then I've taken and with a button hole on my machine have put button holes on each side.

On the backside, we of course have a basic four patch.

In this case it'd be nice to keep your colors dark.

That way it wouldn't show dirt so quickly.

Another thing I'd like you to do on this show is get a needle in thread handy.

Maybe you're sitting in your sewing room where someone in your house can get you one in a few minutes.

I wanna show you how to put a knot at the end of a thread.

Quite often when we're quilting we'll use the the lick 'em method and make a knot at the end of the thread and it won't pull through our layers or if we make a knot and it's so tiny it keeps coming through.

Well, I have a new technique and a full-proof way of you learning how to make a knot, so get a needle and thread on hand.

I'd like to introduce you to our sewing room and show you many of the things that we're gonna be covering on each one of our shows.

One of the first techniques that we're gonna be learning will be pivoting on the sewing machine.

One of my students used to drive around a mountain.

She said she now pivots around a mountain after learning this technique.

It will mean working with our bow tie pattern.

This is a kind of a mini bow tie pattern and also the formal garden pattern.

These are angles that are more than 90 degrees and we'll be able to learn how to put the goal part of this bow tie together and then set in by pivoting on the machine at these points, actually four points, one, two, three, and four.

And this will enable us to put this block together on the sewing machine.

In this case, it's been turned into a pillow.

We'll also be looking on this show at all the different ways of putting pillows together.

Some with lace, some with braid, and that will give you ideas of ways to use some of your blocks.

The formal garden block will be done in much the same way.

It means learning how to sew opposites.

In this case, I have put a little smocking sampler in the middle and perhaps you have maybe some kind of cross stitch or some other work that you've done and you want to highlight it and this would be a good way to do it by putting it in a patchwork block.

We'll also be looking at right angles.

Quite often when we put a star block together as in a Texas star, star of Bethlehem block, we're going to have a right angle where the square sets in and where the triangle sets in.

And I learned this technique merely by studying some old blocks that were put together.

At the same time, we'll wanna be reviewing our tote bags.

This is a basic nine patch and we will spend time with many of the blocks that we've already learned kind of reviewing.

This is a tote bag where we have staggered the borders so you get kind of an interest around the outside.

The same idea.

And here's your bow tie, again, done in another arrangement and this time with more or less coordinating fabrics, but it's been set off with muslin and has print handles on it.

And so we'll be looking at the tote bags, also.

Perhaps you'd like to make a handbag, a calico handbag.

This is your starflower pattern and of course on the backside your king's X.

And inside we have bow tie.

It's been lined with denim and it is a certain technique that I have of putting rectangles together.

Now, all three blocks could be the same or it could be different, as this one is, creating a sampler.

And we'll even be learning how to crochet the handle.

If you have a large crochet hook, get it out and get it ready and we'll learn how to treat that.

Perhaps you'd like to make something a little more elaborate and you've saved some leftover scraps of velvet or even some men's tie silks.

We'll put this little handbag together much the same way we would the one that's calico.

This can be scotch guarded when it's done and it makes lovely gifts.

We'll even spend some time learning how to do the briar stitch or the finn and feather stitch, which is a nice accent, always on crazy patch.

An old time favorite and really a novelty type quilt.

It has always been referred to as a quilt, but there there's no batting in it and it receives its warmth actually from the fact that all the fabric is layered and that's the cathedral quilt.

I know all of you are familiar with it.

There was a period when I think it was kind of a secret how to put this one together.

Well, the word is out, and we have a a marvelous way of putting it together on the sewing machine and then your last or your finishing steps are done by hand.

This has been called the stained glass pattern, also.

It has kind of a, the church reminiscent to it.

Applique is a technique all in itself.

It's always been associated with quilting.

And we think back on applique.

When material was very scarce in colonial times, it was thought of as being very extravagant to take a yard of cloth and cut out a design.

You would never have done that.

That was being very wasteful, but later on when fabric was more plentiful, applique was thought to be a very creative way of working with quilt ideas.

So the two patterns we'll be working with, of course, are the little Dutch girl.

And it's sometimes called Sun Bonnet Sue.

Or Overall Sam, a little Dutch boy.

He's gone fishing of course, but this is the beginning of a tote bag and we'll look at the many ways of finishing off applique, sometimes on the sewing machine, but more often done by hand.

The grandmother's flower garden of course is reminiscent and is made up of the hexagon pattern, which was derived from an English method of hand pacing when it was put over paper.

We'll be looking at that method and then updating it.

I like to make just a rosette, which would just be one of the little flowerettes, and then treating it like applique and putting it on your 12 and a half inch foundation.

And then it can can become a part of your sampler.

Let's not forget wall hangings.

There are many ways of adapting the blocks that we've learned how to do to putting it on the wall.

Many of our new contemporary quilters that have studied all the traditional patterns are now exploring ways of really taking what we could call graphic art and turning it into cloth art and it becomes decoration in your home.

This could for instance, go over your couch or could be decoration as part of the headboard over your bed.

These are of course the moon over the mountain, the log cabin, and the house on the hill, hung up with a wooden bar.

I'll be showing you how to do these quilted loops, which is a nice accent.

Quite often we like to show how our quilt is hung and then there are other ways of hanging old quilts and we'll be talking about the care of quilts, also.

I want to thank all my students who have shared their quilts with me.

I realize that for every one quilt that you'll be seeing, there are many more out there, but there's no way we can show all of them, but you will be seeing several of my students quilts on this show.

Here are two other lap quilting method of doing wall hangings.

The formal garden, one that we'll be looking at again.

The house on the hill, attic windows.

Now this is a new way of putting our starflower pattern together.

We'll spend time with that, the drunkard's path, a version of the log cabin and of course the monkey wrench.

There are many other lap quilting methods that we would refer to as optional methods.

Perhaps you remember some of these blocks from the first series.

I like to call this our his and her blocks or quilts, mainly because one of 'em has kind of a masculine treatment on the outside and we can review, for just a minute, some of the blocks that we are working on.

Here's a bow tie that we'll be learning , the house on the hill, and of course our Dresden plate.

In this case just done with two colors.

Quite often we think of this as being a friendship ring.

The monkey wrench.

And then here's our formal garden again.

The moon over the mountain, and of course our grandmother's fan.

This center one of course is a little Dutch boy and he's turned into a golfer with nickers, but this would be a small, what we would call an Afghan size quilt.

And this outside treatment I call sawtooth edging.

I've heard it called prairie points also, but it's a way of more or less finishing off a quilt and we'll spend some time examining the different treatments, whether or not it's something on this order, or maybe you'd wanna put as is on this quilt a ruffle.

This is hers quilt.

And the same idea, a little Dutch girl is highlighted in the center and I think you recognize several of the blocks, a basic nine patch.

And here's the drunkard's path, again, only simply put together in a different fashion so it takes on a whole new look, but these are companion quilts we could call them.

Then also perhaps you remember the log cabin quilt that I was working on.

This is one new method that I want to remind you of putting a quilt together but not using a border.

In other words, the quilt itself maintains its design.

In this case it's called straight furrows from the fact that it's been a block to block assembly without any borders and we wanna take a look at several of our blocks.

It can be done that way.

My mother has been quilting on some blocks and two things that she noticed that when she was quilting, she said from the first one to the fourth one, she noticed that her stitchers are getting smaller and they were also getting closer together, and that's a good thing.

You're gonna realize that with more experience, the more time you spend with your quilting, you're gonna be happier with it.

The other thing she said, my goodness, my fingers hurt.

Well, this is something we do need to explore and talk about how to take care of our fingers and it also reminds me of a letter I received from Apex, North Carolina.

Let's read that letter.

I received a letter from Geneva Baker from Apex, North Carolina and she writes, "Dear Georgia, your precise, neat tips on quilt piecing are a delight.

I lived in Kentucky when I was a child 55 years ago where the farm women quilted for Beard Studio in New York and I had a chance to see real old time professionals at work.

One thing they did was to put a piece of adhesive tape over the finger that the needle touched underneath.

I have done it and it works, sort of a soft thimble.

Lap quilting takes the big drudgery steps of spreading out the lining filler and the top to put in the frame.

More power to you.

I like your TV manner very much, Geneva Baker."

Of course, she's a friend for life.

I want to mention that if your fingers of course are bleeding, stop quilting.

That's a time to go take a hike, play some tennis or do some dishes, and of course cold water will take any blood that gets in the back of your quilt out.

But there is an array of thimbles on the market and I would encourage you when you start quilting to try and use at least two thimbles.

Now, one thimble will always stay of course on the hand that uses and holds the needle on your middle finger.

The idea being that this is to guide the eye of your needle through the fabric.

I find that when I quilt, I use this ridge that is around the outside.

When you get your thimble, make sure it comes down and covers enough of your finger.

For a while, I was using a thimble that simply stopped right here, and if you quilt a lot, you have a tendency to form a little callous on your finger, so make sure your thimble is long enough.

Then the ideal situation would be to use a thimble on the offhand, that hand that feels the point of your needle coming through.

Now, it's kind of clumsy and awkward to get used to at first, but if you start out that way, it is a good way of protecting your fingers.

I find that for myself, I will use the adhesive tape if I know I'm gonna be quilting for a long time.

Simply wrap that around your finger and that helps to prevent that cows from forming.

There are other things on the market.

There are, for instance, a rubber finger guard that would go over your finger.

There is also a leather type cover that would fit snugly on your finger.

Something like this is almost too bulky for me, but it might work for you.

There's also a little leather tip that has a little steel piece inside.

This one's called nimble finger, nimble thimble, and it works very nicely, also.

All these are ideas for protecting your hand.

I have one of my students, Darlene, who claims that that doesn't bother her at all.

That's her quilting badge and she's proud of having those pin pricks on her finger.

Another one of my students gave me some bag balm.

This is the sort of thing that you have to get at a farm store, and of course I told her it was utterly terrific, but this sort of thing is a salve that you can rub in your callous fingers once a day and it helps to soften it and keeps it kind of smooth.

So whatever you do get in the habit of working with a thimble.

It will kind of protect your hands.

Before we learn that new way of putting a knot in the end of a thread, I want to remind you that there are frames on the market and you are welcome to use them if you'd like.

It of course means if you're working in squares, you've got to still base your three layers together.

I always feel that is important.

Then you would have to take that extra step to adjust your frame.

Most of them are adjustable, and then you would simply whip stitch by hand and secure this frame in its mounting so it would be set in place.

I find this sort of thing restricting and I like to quilt without a frame, but this might work for you and if you're used to quilting at a big frame, this might be the answer for you.

Besides a square frame, there is also available what we would refer to as a round embroidery hoop, but it's of course been enlarged for quilting.

It has tension on one side, so you can make this as taut as you want, and I've started out quilting here and of course I think this would be mainly nice to use at the center of a block, and then when you finish and you're getting ready to do your borders, you could remove the round hoop and then you could go ahead and do your borders and quilt those without a frame.

But these are available and we'll even on our last show, take a look at quilting, a huge quilt top with an oval hoop, the kind of thing that where you would start quilting in the center.

We wanna examine that a little more closely.

As I mentioned before, quite often when we start quilting, we have a problem putting a knot at the end of our thread.

Now, perhaps you've been using the lick 'em method.

And what has happened is that you're knot gets too large and then you can't pull it through or else it's so tiny it just keeps slipping through the fabric, so try this new method.

It works for just regular thread, not quilting thread and also embroidery thread.

We tried it with that also.

You're going to of course have your short needle.

That's a number seven, number eight or number nine, a quilting needle, and you're going to thread it.

Now, don't let your thread be too long.

If it's say over 20 inches, it's going to get worn out as it's pulled through the layers, but in the hand that you're going to be holding the needle, hold it already threaded and then in your off hand take your thread and place it right on the needle.

You're gonna be holding on to a little end of it, and I like to hold that with my forefinger and with my thumb, and then with my offhand, take your thread and wrap it twice, once, twice, and just kind of slide it down in between.

Then with your off finger, take this and pull all the way down and you're gonna find yourself a perfect knot.

At the end of the thread, it'll have a little tail on it, but that won't bother.

You can snip that off.

Let's do it once more.

I wanna make sure you get the idea of that.

Take your thread that has been threaded through your needle and hold it in your right hand.

Now, you'll notice that wherever you place this thread on your needle and wrap, that's where you're knot is gonna be formed, so of course you wanna just grab just a little bit the tag end, and it doesn't make any difference whether when you wrap it, it goes away from you or towards you.

That doesn't make any different, and then pull that down end, and that's held in there, isn't it?

Then with this finger, I will come and just pull this all the way down.

You can feel it slipping through.

It really is a form of doing a French knot, only you pulled it all the way down.

Then I would take my scissors and trim off a little bit knowing that that's my knot.

That's already to be pulled through my fabric.

With our block, now you remember, this is our rail fence block, a basic four patch.

Let's quilt for just a minute.

I have one.

Let's put this over here and this is all ready to go.

Let's, of course, remind ourself how important it is to make sure that our layers are all based together all the way through.

I think on the backside you can get a close look at how this has been basted in a contrasting color all the way around the outside, and then an X through the middle.

If that's not enough basting for you, you might wanna bast at a right angle once again through the middle of your block, but when this is done, we're ready to start quilting.

This is a new technique of putting a more or less an oval look all the way around the outside of our block, and we'll be studying that later on in one of our shows.

Now, I have started in the middle.

Always start in the middle of your block, save your borders for the last, and also I think it's nice to, as you're quilting, think of your off hand being opposite of where your needle's going.

I think that helps to balance your fabric.

I'm going to put the needle in, oh, I'd say about a half an inch from where I want to actually come up and you can see I'm coming up right where I wanna start quilting, and then you can more or less hear that knot, just come through.

And kind of tug at it.

Make sure that it's held tight in there.

And then I'm going to start quilting.

Now remember how you quilt of course, and how many stitches you take each time is kind of a personal matter and that's up to you.

I take one, two, oh between three and four stitches each time and I have a tendency then to let that needle come through with that ridge on my thimble.

Do you see how that kind of anchors it and takes it through?

Actually it.

If I take my stitches and then go all the way like that, that wastes time.

I'd much rather just use the rim right around my thimble and push it through.

I'm gonna quilt just a little bit further and see how this off hand, actually, I've started here grasping the material and come in like so.

I wanna make sure that on the back side I don't get any of this overlapping of my back fabric.

That that wouldn't work.

As I would of course run towards the end of my thread, I realize I need to hide a knot.

Let me trim some of my thread down, so, let's pretend we're just about out of thread here.

I wanna show you how to hide a knot the best way.

I'll take three more stitches and I'm out of thread.

Take your thread and loop it around so that you have pulled the needle through and you've actually put a knot in the end of your thread.

Then take the point on that needle and pull it all the way down as close to the fabric as you can.

Then I take a little, what I call a running half back stitch and slide it right in.

Now my needle has not gone through the backside.

It is, you can see it is floating in the middle.

And then I will take that knot and I will yank it and pull it all the way through.

Then I'm ready to trim.

You see I have a floater thread then.

Then I'm ready to trim that all the way off.

And I'm ready to finish quilting.

We look forward to seeing you in the next show where we'll be spending time pivoting on the sewing machine, formal garden, and our bow tie pattern, and looking at a complete array of pillows and many ways to adapt them for your home.

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