- A jam-packed lap quilting show today includes the latest in prize-winning quilted fashion, displayed on some very original mannequins.

Meet Jacqueline Nouveau as she shares her garment and quilt ideas.

Then to my sewing room for three great holiday projects.

[upbeat instrumental 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 ♪ - [Narrator] "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.

- Yes, welcome to our holiday mantle, complete with Santa's bag.

Now these mannequins aren't too talkative, but I'll tell you about their styles after we speak with a more talkative guest.

Jacqueline Nouveau from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Welcome, Jacqueline.

- Thank you, Georgia.

- I know that I've always thought of you as a garment maker, but you are expanding.

Tell us what your current interests are.

- Well, my current interest is art quilts, and this is sort of an experiment of mine in that field.

- Well, I see a hint of log cabins.

So that means you started with tradition and I know garments way back when with a, you have a background of sewing and you raised three girls, and so I know you did home sewing, but I'm fascinated by your fur coat.

And I know there's a little explanation about that.

- I saw an article in Threads Magazine, 1990, about a designer by the name of Koos, and he spells it K-O-O-S.

So I always have to explain that a little bit.

And he has a business where he takes clients old fur coats and he makes them into these wonderful garments.

And I had a fur coat.

- And that was the springboard, right?

- That was the springboard.

And that's the result of my first experiment.

- Well, I understand he got to see you in that coat in New York City- - Yes.

- And that certainly makes - It special.

- And he said, I was very pleased, he said, "And next year you will see this in my line."

- Oh goodness.

[Jacqueline and Georgia laughing] - Well then from there, I know you were challenged by the possibility of entering shows, not only in Houston, but in Paducah, and that is a great incentive.

And so tell us about your coat.

- Well, that coat inspired somebody to give me one of their old ones, which was this black curly lamb.

And so I decided to try it once more, because that's a very easy version of what Koos was explaining.

And this is more in the tradition of his style and it's more in a quilters style also, putting all these different fabrics together and different cuttings.

And so I attempted to get a little more detail in this coat.

- [Georgia] It goes onto the back.

- [Jacqueline] Right.

- [Georgia] Well you have such a monochromatic look.

It's all, but it flows so nicely.

Black just brings out so much.

- Right, and it needed a lot of other blacks and velvets and other special fabrics too to help bring it out.

- A lot of thickness.

How did you sew that?

- With difficulty.

Lots of broken needles.

You take the, and make bias tape to cover up all the raw edges.

You don't seam anything together.

They're all laid flat on the muslin base that we put it on.

And as a whole outfit, I made a vest and the blouse, and the blouse is the reverse of the lining inside.

And I like lots of movement in my clothing.

- [Georgia] Look at your closures.

- [Jacqueline] Yes, I laced them together and let the ends hang down.

And I like interest on the back too.

I don't like it just to stop.

- [Georgia] And fringe, vertically inserted.

- [Jacqueline] I think I actually wove that.

I know I did in...

Yes, I wove that through.

- Oh.

And then the hat to complete it.

- The hat, the fur on the hat was the collar of the coat and I couldn't waste that either, so I turned it into the brim of a hat and found this wonderful, wonderful pin at a craft show to complete the outfit.

- I bet you look smashing in this.

And then tell us about more recycling.

- More recycling.

Well then I got into neck ties.

Neck ties have a fascination for me.

They're wonderful, wonderful patterns.

And men just throw them away and that seems a shame.

So I tried a new technique of strip piecing, but irregularly cut, and that makes the pieces go together in a more freeform manner.

And some of the neckties are here with the raw edges.

And I put a pocket in the jacket because I always like a pocket in my clothing.

And, but because it was sandwiched together and that's the way I quilted it and then biased bound it, I had to figure out how to make the pocket attractive on the inside when you took the coat off.

And I just used some more of the fabric and tacked it down and added a tie and then all these wonderful labels.

I'm in love with the labels.

- [Georgia] Oh, well you just don't stop at the outside.

That's what makes it so exciting.

- Well that's part of the fun I think, of wearables.

And then after I finished that, I had some leftovers, and as I said, I'm interested in going into art quilts.

This is the little piece that I made from the leftovers.

And here I can get into the beading and the stringing and the glitz and the glitter that I can't seem to apply personally to my clothing that I'm gonna wear.

I always, my clothing is developed as though I was going to wear it, no matter if it's for a show or what.

And I can't do this in personal clothing, but I can do it in wall quilts.

And I think that's one of the reasons that I'm going to wall art.

- Well, do you have any suggestions, Jacqueline, for people who'd like to expand and put more flare in not only their wall quilts, but their clothing?

- Well, for me, I can only tell them what I do, which is I take classes.

I take classes in the areas that I think will benefit me with whatever I'm doing at the moment.

And at the moment I've been studying with quilters who are known as art quilters.

- [Georgia] I like your suggestion that created the situation to quilt this wall hanging.

Please explain that to the quilt world.

- Well again, this from classes I happen to hear, no one demonstrated this, but I happen to hear about a technique of using fusible webbing to sandwich your quilt together.

And that's what I tried with this one.

You just stop and think about it.

You put your, I use a pinup board, and I put the quilt on the pinup board and tightened it down as though you were preparing it for- - The back exposed and the good parts to the wall?

- Right.

And then put fusible webbing on it and took my iron and ironed it in place on the wall.

Then the cotton batting was placed on top of that and heated through with the iron.

Then the fusible was, another layer of fusible was put on top of the cotton batting.

Again, you know, ironed on.

- [Georgia] Take the paper off.

- Take the paper off, and then put your back on and iron through the back.

And this was quilted without any pins or basting under the machine.

- Now I want you to design an iron about that size, okay?

[Georgia laughing] That's the new bowl iron.

All right.

- The new bowl iron.

- That's a great idea.

Well what, you've made a special garment for our show today.

Please show it off.

I really like it.

- Recycling again.

- Okay.

- And so I got into my stash of kimonos and obis and I produced this little vest and- - [Georgia] And I think it just gives people the idea that straight lines are boring sometimes.

You've got such movement in this and look how you've even closed the sides here with just a simple- - All I did was button.

It's got leftover kimono and obi red silks inside and I was hoping it might flap a little bit and show a little bit of the red.

- Well you have shared so much with us today and we really love your garments.

It's it so nice.

- Thank you.

- And if you'll leave one for each of us, I think we'll be happy.

- All right.

All right.

- Thank you.

And come back again sometime.

- I'd love to.

Thank you, Georgia.

- Expanding on more fashions, we had the top winners of the 10th annual AQS Hobbes Bonded Fibers Fashion Show from Paducah.

The second place winner is Angela J. Kennedy from Andover, Kansas.

A vogue pattern for a suit and coat take on a new character with a styled elements of jacquard fabric, machine quilted using various sizes of pearl cotton in the Babin.

Note how the motifs are quilted and then more echo quilting with monofilament thread totaling over 4,000 yards.

Being able to model this ensemble on the runway makes it well worth this show off opportunity.

Angela named her garment Nuance.

Rebecca Kelly Wood from Burlington North Carolina won the Design Excellence Award.

Inspired by a sewing garment from a postcard sent from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Rebecca completed this coat and designed her own pattern.

Sparkle and swing are the key ingredients for this magnificent coat.

Can you guess what the coat measures around the hem?

It's 345 inches.

And the amount of fabric?

55 yards.

Hand dyed sweated cotton makes up the bulk of the coat, with 150 meters of glass beads that are couched on yolk, the hat, and the muff.

Yes, Hobbs batting was used as a stabilizer, helping to support the weight of all those beads.

What fun wearing this coat?

Maybe the opera, maybe Mardi Gras, maybe the runway at Paducah.

Personally knowing this garment maker, Pat Nelson from Athens, Pennsylvania, makes this a special presentation.

Her garment is modeled by Tabitha Powell.

Pat shared some thoughts that might be a hint for prospective entries.

Her previous garments were not selected, so she took some advice for this show.

A new 35 millimeter camera, some photography lessons, and a mannequin for display won her first prize along with her beautiful garment.

Because the wool coat did not cooperate for marking the quilting stencil pattern, the design was traced onto muslin and quilted from the backside with thermal batting in between.

The vest is a Burda pattern embellished with silk flowers and ultra suede vines, a la Jacobian style.

Now Pat's first application setting with the flowers resulted in a symmetrical arrangement, boring and without flare.

So she undid one side completely to go asymmetrical, then it all worked.

An extra accent are the flowers made with the wired edged shaded ribbon on the hat.

A big thank you to Manic Productions for our posable mannequins.

What a great idea for quilt shops, quilt shows, conventions, and style shows.

You can buy these, you can rent them, or you can even purchase the pattern and make your own.

They become a perfect backdrop to the ultimate fashion statement.

Now about those holiday projects I promised you.

[upbeat instrumental music] We are really in the holiday spirit here.

This quilt tote all will carry all my presents and then can even go to my guild and my group meeting full of all my quilts.

I'd like to mention that it's nice to buy my vest already printed on a piece of fabric.

It gives me a little more time for all my other projects.

Now to make this quilt tote all, you will need a yard and a half of fabric, two pieces of elastic, 3/4 inches wide and 15 inches long, two plastic hoops, or they could be wooden.

The bigger the better because if they're as big as 10 or 12 inches, they'll fit right on your shoulder.

You might have to go to a craft store that sells macrame to find these.

The process is to put a hem on each long salvage side of your fabric.

I would fold it over three inches, double it with a quarter inch seam, stitch it all the way down, and then just with a large safety pin that's attached to your elastic, slip it through and gather it up.

About five inches down on all four corners machine stitch that elastic in place and you can see what's happened here.

Once that's been done, see how it gathers up on each opposite side.

Then I would go ahead and surge or satin stitch the raw edge at the other two ends.

Then I fold down an inch and three quarters and put pins all along here because then you have to go to the sewing machine and put that through and make sure, you might have to take your presser foot off, then put your presser foot back on so this width can go through.

And then just straight stitch or gentle satin stitch all the way.

It'll get a bit cumbersome, but you're really gonna like it and it is easy to do once you get started.

[upbeat instrumental music] This time I have some printed email.

And by the way, you can contact us by checking the email address at the end of our show if you have questions about the series.

Amy writes, "After all the family business, I have a problem with the wool sweaters.

I have moths in all of them.

What can I do about that?"

Well, on one of our recent trips, I came across the answer.

It's an herbal moth repellent, all sorts of things, mainly cedar in here, Rosemary, oak moss.

It smells great.

And this is very pertinent to our project today because our Ohio star wreath is all made from wool with some cotton accents.

Yes, I'm recycling some old skirts.

And what I've done to show you the method for this is to cut up 12 light background cotton fabrics, five inch squares, and then two red five inch squares in wool and 22 assorted greens.

Now the whole answer is folding it just the right way.

So if you'll follow me, you start with that square folded on the diagonal with the raw edges to the outside, and then you just interlock them.

If I go here, I pin it in place and then this goes under and the green goes on top and you just repeatedly do that.

And of course before I would pin it completely, I tuck in that teaspoon of herbal moth repellent.

So I think that works very nicely.

Then you're dealing with the raw edges and our next project deals with completed edges.

Do you remember the Greek shepherds coat that I made?

It's has that same problem situation.

You're working with a back and two fronts and some wool melting for sleeves and the hood, and the edges are all finished.

So then I had to worry about putting them together.

And in this case, I used just a cotton yarn and did a buttonhole stitch and it worked very nicely.

On this project, I turned to the sewing machine.

So if you examine this, I put it together by using that open edge foot stitch on my machine and a decorative stitch.

Put it together just like an Ohio star, three rows.

So when I had two stitchings in each row and then stitch my row together and even finished it on the outside.

Notice that a wooden lattice strip slips in the back.

And what's kind of fun is I thought it would be the same on the back, but it changes.

So I hope you'll get some ideas for this.

Corin Meyers from Tennessee shared this little technique with me.

She had it on a garment.

So think garments, think full quilts, lots of potential with this.

Then when it comes to Christmas, we always have to think baby quilts at some point.

And I'm lucky to have three married children, so I'm really hoping for many grandchildren and we need to have lots of baby quilts on hand.

So I have a very clever little way to make a baby quilt.

And what it starts with is some baby fabric.

And of course you can find lots of that in the stores.

And then I had some old shirts that my dad had worn and I certainly didn't wanna throw them away.

So we are recycling them.

And what better place than in a baby quilt?

Let me show you the method and how you do this.

It starts with, for each little section, four, five and a half inch squares, two baby print and two shirts cut up.

Once those have been cut up, sew a four patch.

Now all of you can sew four patches now.

Go ahead and open that intersection in the back and press it flat and then cut yourself a seven inch square of batting.

I used all my leftover bats in here, placed it on the diagonal and then pinned it on the right side.

Put two pins in and anchor them pretty good because then the next step, you are going to fold your square into a rectangle and machine stitch each side, and at the side go ahead and snip that right angle.

In other words, you wanna free up any excess material right there.

When that has been freed, then you're going to take in, almost like making a cathedral quilt block.

Turn it again, so you're gonna machine stitch starting here about an inch, and then at this end, machine stitch over that intersection, so you leave an opening of about two inches.

At this point, remember, your batting's still pinned in place, you're gonna turn it inside out.

Invert all of these.

Now my assistant helped me with all of these.

She comes real cheap.

She's my mother and she's a big help with all of these little projects.

So when I had that all turned, you need to either take a pin and when you do that, make sure and put that pin right in the seam.

That's where the strength is.

Even easier, is to use that purple fang and you can just stick that in there and point out, push out all those points, and this is what you end up with.

All the edges are taken care of.

It's the same on the front and the back.

And now I'm going to put these together.

But I was worried that that batting might slip around.

So I decided to machine quilt a circle in here.

It's very intriguing to use this circular device on my machine.

Give me a minute, I wanna put this on and I'll show you what happens next.

The circular embroidery attachment goes on very easily with just a single screw.

Notice that there is a little pin that sticks up and it has a cap on it.

From that pin to the needle becomes your radius.

So you need to decide how big a circle you wanna make.

Now when I completed all 32 of these squares, they're all folded in place, there is a little place where you have to slip stitch it close, that was where you turned it inside out.

The next step is decide on the stitch you want to use to machine quilt these in a circular manner.

It can be a straight stitch, an open zigzag, or I've chosen a decorative stitch.

Now to do that, you need to look at all the feet you have in your machine.

I'm using an open embroidery foot.

I like to see the action and see what's happening.

And I remembered doing this same step with just a straight stitch on a vest where I did overlapping circles, matching thread on the back and metallic thread on the front.

The next consideration is the hoop that's gonna hold this in place.

And I really like the fact that this hoop has a dip in it.

Do you see how that goes down?

Allowing this to insert very nicely underneath my foot.

So I'm gonna secure my little folded square in place.

Just place it so the same amount of fabric is coming out on each side and position it.

Now look what happens.

You cover up where those dips align.

So what I've done is put a little red mark that aligns with the screw and then when I come down, that little dip is all in place.

So now I'm ready to put this in and I take my cap off and then I have to find that center and it means just kind of poking around a little bit so I can push that all the way down.

And it means, oh, sometimes just kind of working it.

And when that's all the way down, I can put my cap back on.

With the cap in place, I then take and do one touch to pull up that bob and thread.

I like to keep that in place, that allows that not to get caught in the decorative stitching.

So then I'll find the stitch that I want to use and I like to push what I call pattern begin, so I know it's gonna start exactly where I want it.

And with your cap in place, then you're ready to start your machine quilting.

Now, when all 32 were done, I needed then to secure those together.

And for that I used the same foot that you would use for a blind hem stitch.

And it's that little, in my case, an open edge foot, open edge stitch foot, and it has a bar.

So each of these completed folded edges can ride up next to it.

Let me show you how that happens.

Of course, you could hand whip stitch these together, but look at this crossover stitch, the feather stitch.

It's so strong and it certainly goes a lot faster.

I used it a little stiletto here every once in a while to keep my ends even.

Now to complete the quilt, I changed to letters and did one block that said "Baby Bonesteel".

If you're thinking of all the other potentials of this idea, try denim.

And this time leave the seam allowances on the outside to fray as you launder the quilt.

Well, let me tell you that the quilt world has discovered buttons.

Tune in next time to our button show.

♪ Child sleeps under mother's creation ♪ ♪ Together forever ♪ [instrumental music] ♪ 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 ♪ [instrumental music continues] - [Narrator] "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.