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

International Quilt Market 2015 Houston

I'm back from International Quilt Market in Houston, and finally catching my breath a bit from travel, filling orders, and just plain doing laundry!

Despite all of the media alarmists, the hurricane did not wreak havoc on Houston, but it did bring a lot of rain. Not something I am used to at all, but it only affected our going to and leaving the convention center. In fact, I didn't even know there WAS a hurricane, until there was some mention of it from fellow vendors.

The attendance was low at Quilt Market, so I'm counting on quilters everywhere to let their local quilt shops know about my new fabric line with Henry Glass, "A Prairie Journal". I'm so excited about this line, which was released at Fall Quilt Market in Houston.  It will ship in the summer of 2016, so please let your local quilt shops know you would like to see it in their shop! If you click on the image below, you can see the entire line, and the quilts I designed as free pattern downloads.

A PRAIRIE JOURNAL

In my market booth I was also displaying some of the projects that will be included in my new book that will be released in January, 2016, "Betsy's Scrapbag".

BETSY'S SCRAPBAG

I will be working like crazy the rest of the year to finalize the book.

The Quilts, Inc. organizers keep the Special Exhibit portion of the show open for an extra hour so that the vendors can enjoy the exhibits after hours, and not leave their booths unmanned.

An hour won't cover it all, so we had to edit what we could see, and my pick was the antique quilt exhibits. Only one of the exhibits allowed photography, so I'll share some of the photos here. These photos are from the Moda antique quilt exhibit:

The "quilt" above is made from paper postcards, very unique. 
 

We were on our way out, when this beautiful quilt caught my eye. It's newly made and one of the quilts juried into the Quilt Festival.

The quilt titled "Lady Indigo" was made by Carol Coffey Taylor and Martha Vincent of Beaumont, Texas, and is truly a beauty. The photo doesn't do it justice.

Of course, I had to go visit my quilt displayed in the Primitive and Folk Art Special Exhibit!

Annie's Scrapbook

I hope you've enjoyed the photos!

Until next time,

Martha

My exciting news

Yes, I have been away from my blog for too long! I was sick with a virus for most of April and then it was followed with a head cold for the first two weeks of May! Needless to say, once I started feeling human again, I had a lot to do! I was also glad to be feeling better as we had a very special graduation to attend in May - our youngest son graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelors degree in Linguistics. It was a very busy but fun weekend!

Now, for my good news - I was over-the-moon excited to find out last week that I was selected as one of the 23 finalists for a new exhibit to be held at International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas this coming October, curated by Primitive Quilts and Projects Magazine. The quilts in the Primitive and Folk Art exhibit are meant to represent and promote the primitive and folk art style.

And, not only that, but my quilt "Annie's Scrapbook" was awarded third place in the Original Pattern Design category. Whoo hoo!

Annie's Scrapbook

I can't wait to see all of the the other quilts hanging - it's sure to be a great exhibit.

Hopefully, I will be back to blog soon about some of the projects I've been working on - and maybe a new fabric line, too!

Until next time!
Martha