Great American Barn Quilts

Here's a video I made of photos of barn quilts - those great works of art that people mount on their barns. The Pennsylvania Dutch used to call them "hex signs." The photography was done by my friend, Kermit Hugo, and I arranged a traditional tune for solo harp, to go with it. The melody is called "Prospect," and it is a popular hymn also, called "The Lone, Wild Bird." This video runs about two and a half minutes.

Book: Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel

Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel
by Georgia Bonesteel

Have you ever done lap quilting? It's my favorite quilting technique. It works with both hand and machine quilting, and it is wonderfully portable. Once I tried this, I became a convert--never to go back to regular quilting.

The secret is in the blocks. You sandwich together a manageable-sized block (12" square or so), including the pieced top section, batting, and backing. Then you can hold it and quilt it by hand or run it easily through your sewing machine to quilt it. When you've got all your quilted blocks done, then it's time to sew them together with a clever little top-to-top seam, butted-together batting edges, and flapped-over backing connections. Brilliant!

Here's my lap-quilted summer coverlet. You can see how the blocks fit together by looking at the back--I alternated the backing stripe directions for interest. It has six 24" square blocks, rectangular blocks around the edges, and little square blocks at the corners. I also embroidered around the pictures. What you don't see is the embroidery I've been adding to the white blocks as an afterthought... twigs and leaves. Every bit of this quilt was stitched by hand, but I could have easily used a sewing machine.

I like to use a folded-over edging on my quilts, in a fairly dark color. The edge is the part of the quilt that is most exposed to wear and tear. The dark colored edging helps hide stains, and it's easy to remove and replace when the times comes.

Recommended for This Quilt Clover Bias 1-Inch Tape Maker I use a little tool for making my own edging. This allows me to pick exactly the color and fabric that will look good with the quilt.