A Prairie Journal fabric arrival!

This summer I did something I've never done before - drive across the country - and by myself, no less! I had a very exciting destination. I was going to see my new (and first) grandson who was born in June! He was just about to turn 3 weeks old when I finally arrived. Of course, I could have flown to Virginia, but I wanted to see my sister in Oklahoma and my mother in the Kansas City area, so I thought driving would be in some ways easier. It was a great trip (except for the torrential rain on 3 of my driving days).

I left in June, and a month later was back home in July. While I was away, my Henry Glass Fabric collection, A Prairie Journal fabric arrived, so it was here when I got back. It's just beautiful to see on the bolts!

A Prairie Journal

Last week, I was finally unpacked, and ready to cut into the fabric and make my first quilt from the collection. I chose to make the panel quilt first, which is a free project to download you can find on both the Henry Glass Fabrics website and my website. This quilt is made using the panel from the collection, cutting out the large center portion, and the four small floral blocks for the corner sections. It's surrounded by plain borders and broken dishes blocks made from the red and blue coordinates. I'm just in love with the dark teal blue fabric!

Here are the pieces ready to put together:

And the top finished!

A Prairie Journal quilt

I have more quilts to make with the collection, so I'll post more pictures as I get them done.

Back to my trip - while I was in Kansas City, I did a trunk show at Quilter's Station in Lee's Summit, Missouri. Here are a few pictures that I borrowed from the many that their wonderful photographer took, and posted on the Quilter's Station Facebook page.

"Basket Quartet" quilt made from my Studio e Fabric line Elementary

"1776" from Betsy's Scrapbag

"Autumn Stars" from Betsy's Scrapbag

 

"Bricks and Boughs" table runner from my book Be Merry

 

And a few pictures from my drive cross country:

One of my overnight stays both ways was Paducah, Kentucky.

Downtown Clinton, Tennessee

I had heard that Clinton, Tennessee had some good antique shops, so I made a short side trip to do some shopping. I came home with some fantastic goodies from Corner Antiques.

And visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Oklahoma always takes me through the beautiful Cimarron country of Oklahoma:

Gloss (Glass) Mountains

We live in a beautiful country, and I loved seeing familiar places again, and places I've never been to before. It was a great trip, and I miss my new grandson already! But East or West, home is best, and I'm happy to be home and making quilts again!

Until next time,

Martha

Basting my Quilt

If you follow my Facebook page, you may have seen my post about marking my latest finished quilt top for hand quilting. A question was asked on Facebook about the stencil I used, so I will answer it here as well -- the stencil I'm using is from The Stencil Company, and it's a stencil for the Baptist Fan pattern. one of my favorite all over quilting patterns for pieced quilts.

So now my quilt is fully marked, and I thought I would share how I baste my quilts. The way I baste my quilts has gone through a few changes over the years. When I first began making quilts, I basted all of my quilts on the floor (luckily that was a younger me). But after I bought and read Harriet Hargrave's Heirloom Machine Quilting, I used the method she illustrates in the book on how to baste on a table using large binder clips. The table she recommended was one of those long catering type tables, roughly 24" x 8 ft., which I immediately went out and bought. I basted on that table for quite a few years, until I purchased a fold-able cutting table, and came up with another idea:

I bought another identical table, and created a wonderful basting surface, and sometime-design surface by putting the two tables together, and clipping them together where they meet with one large binder clip on each side. The binder clips hold the two tables together very securely, and the two tables together create a 59 1/4" x 71 1/2" surface. The height is just right, and I can lean across and just reach the middle when I'm basting (a taller person would have an easier reach). One of the advantages of using these tables, in general, is that when the fold up, they take very little space, and they are on casters, so they are easy to move around.

I lay the backing right side down, centering the backing on the table. Then I use the large binder clips to clip the sides, stretching the backing as I go. I start in the middle of each side, and then work my way out from the middle of each side until I reach each of the corners.

The backing is stretched and clipped to the table on all sides with large binder clips

If my quilt is shorter than the table edges (smaller wall quilts), I use extra wide masking tape to tape the backing to the table.

After the backing is stretched and clipped, I lay the batting over the backing and gently smooth it flat. I'm using The Warm Company Warm Bond 80/20 bonded quilt batting that I won last summer from the Primitive and Folk Art Exhibit. I LOVE this batting! It has the thin loft that I like for my quilts, and it's soft and glue-free.

Last, comes the quilt top. I use my rulers to make sure every block is square and every border is straight. For hand quilting, I thread baste, and for machine quilting, I pin baste.

This was a fun quilt to make, and I enjoyed using prints from my first fabric line with Studio e Fabrics, Elementary, and mixing them in with a variety of prints from my stash. And I'm looking forward to spending more time with it as I hand quilt it. Time to start threading needles and get this quilt basted! 

Until next time,

Martha

Quilts From Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Fall 2014

My quilt, "Tuscany", is featured in this newest edition of Quilts from Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, Fall 2014.

"Tuscany"

I used fabrics from my fabric line, Elementary for Studio e Fabrics.  The block I used for "Tuscany" is the block I designed for Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, Volume 8, "Martha's Basket". I machine appliqued the handle elements, which made this twin size quilt assemble very quickly.

"Martha's Basket"

The Fall 2014 Quilts from Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks is on newsstands now!