Last night’s call was amazing!
Georgia Bonesteel, a long time quilter and host of the TVprogram, Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel, was the guest for our Eavesdrop on a Telephone Conversation, and she had a ton of great tips to share.
* On the subject of where to find inspiration for a quilt:
check out what is around you -maybe there is a design in a wall of a building, mosaic in the tiles of a floor, or patterns used in another craft such as woodworking that would make a perfect design for a quilt.
* How much fabric does she buy when she doesn’t have a quilt in mind
-turns out Georgia and her husband owned a shop that carried fabric, and when the new bolts came in, she cut off 1 yard. Often old habits die hard – Georgia still buys 1 yard of a fabric for her stash!
* How many different fabrics does she use in a quilt
- the range is from 54 to 1; and the 1 fabric quilt was pieced! She pieced a quilt from just muslin. Once it was together, she realized how interesting the seam allowances were and that they actually created a secondary design in the quilt.
* Her tips for successful machine quilting
-among others: she stabilizes her quilt in a 9 inch round hoop, puts her feed dogs down and meanders around. When that section is finished, she puts her needle down into the quilt and repositions the hoop.
There’s so much more, it would take – well, it did take1 1/2 hours to get it all in.
This was truly one of the best of the best calls, with tons of practical information for all quilters, and information that you can use now as well as for your quilts in the future.
There’s a clip from the Conversation posted here:
http://www.how-to-quilt.com/georgiabonesteel.php
And there is also a picture of the type of thimble Georgia uses for her hand quilting.
Happy Quilting!
Penny Halgren
