Stars and Swirls

The Madrid Heritage Quilters 27th Raffle Quilt, Stars and Swirls, is now on display at Medicap through July 30. See the quilt at City State Bank July 30 through August 20 and then at Uni Clip August 20 through September 3, 2010. The quilt will also be on display during The Annual Quilt Show, Saturday, September 4 at St. John’s Lutheran Church and at the Madrid Heritage Quilters Booth in Veteran’s Square, Sunday, September 5. Drawing the lucky raffle quilt winner happens Monday, September 6 in Edgewood Park after the Lions Club Chicken Dinner.

The Stars and Swirls quilt contains 18 different star blocks with stars also in the boarder. The antique blue, red, and off-white tons highlight the many fabrics each member chose to complete their quilt block. Each member made at least one large star block, sashings, border cornerstones, and sashing cornerstones.

A different twist for this year’s quilt is that it was machine quilted, with stars and swirls. The club decided to forego the traditional hand-quilting to enable members to make quilts to donate to Central Iowa organizations, as the club had done in the past. Also, two pillow cases* were made from the background fabrics to go with the quilt.

Purchase your raffle tickets at Medicap, City State Bank, The Uni Clip, Bank of the West, Hairworks in the Parlor, at the Quilt Show and Quilters Booth, and from any Quilt Club member. The profits from the raffle fund the next raffle quilt and enable the Quilt Club to make donations. Annually, the Quilt Club makes a donation to the Madrid Labor Day Celebration since the club’s beginning. Most recently, the club has also donated to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation for the High Trestle Trail.

*The pillow case pattern is available on this blog.

Quilt Contest Winners - Boone (Iowa) County Fair

Two Madrid Heritage Quilters were excited to find out that they won an award for the quilt blocks that we had entered in the Boone County Fair Quilt Block contest. Suzanne won 3rd place in the adult choice category, and Melody won in the youth choice category. A third Madrid (IA, USA) resident won 1st place in the adult choice category. All the winners and their blocks are shown with the contest organizer.

Four Hearts

Cutting:
1 - 13 ½” sq. of background fabric
1 - 6” sq. of 4 fabrics or 4 - 6” sq. of same fabric

Fold the background square in half and press. Fold in half again (should be a square) and press. Unfold - these press lines are what we will use for placement of our hearts.



Machine Applique
For this method, you will need Wonder Under, Steam a Seam, Heat n' Bond, or another adhesive type of material for machine applique.

Place the Wonder Under on the heart pattern provided. Trace the heart shape (the bold solid line) onto the paper side of the Wonder Under. Do this twice (about 1” apart) for the two hearts we will be machine appliquéing. Cut around the two designs leaving about ½” around design.

Using a dry iron, press the Wonder Under shapes to the wrong side of 2 of the 6” squares, paper side up.

Cut out the heart designs on the lines drawn on the paper side of the Wonder Under.

Peel the paper from the designs. Use 1 of the press lines, on the background piece, (there are 4 lines) to place the heart. The line should be lined up with the point of the heart tip and the point of the dip at the top of the heart. Press heart in place on to the background piece. Repeat with 2nd heart.

Use the buttonhole stitch to do machine appliqué, but the zigzag or any other decorative stitch could be used. Whichever stitch you decide to do, you want to start at the dip at the top of the heart. Line up the edge of the heart with the needle. Stitch all the way around the heart. You should do a back stitch at the beginning and end of your sewing.

Hand Applique - Freezer Paper Method
Cut: Freezer Paper in widths wide enough for the hearts.

Shiny side down, trace the dark line of the heart pattern. Cut out the hearts.

Place the freezer paper hearts, shiny side down, on the right side of 2 of the 6” squares of fabric. Cut about 3/16 to ¼ inch around the design. Where there is an outside curve, you will want to cut small notches, almost up to the freezer paper. Where there is an inside curve, you will want to cut small slits almost up to the freezer paper.

Peel the freezer paper from the fabric. Turn the fabric so the wrong side is up and reposition the heart in place with shiny side up. Very carefully, using a dry iron, press the edges around the paper heart. They will stick to the freezer paper and stay in place for you while are stitching.

Use 1 of the press lines, on the background piece, (there are 4 lines) to place the heart. The line should be lined up with the point of the heart tip and the point of the dip at the top of the heart. Press heart in place on to the background piece. Repeat with 2nd heart. The freezer paper will stick to the background fabric so that it will stay in place while stitching. I pin around the edge of the design, to be sure it stays where I want it appliquéd.

The most commonly used stitch, for hand appliqué, is called the Blind Stitch. To do this stitch, knot the end of a single thread and bring up your needle from underneath the background fabric, barely piercing the fold edge of the piece you are appliquéing on. Insert the needle back into the background fabric, directly opposite where you came out and JUST over the edge of the piece being sewn on. Bring the needle back up through the fabrics, about 1/16th of an inch away from the previous stitch. Continue taking time stitches all the way around the piece you are sewing on. Bring thread to the back and knot when all the way around the piece or the thread gets short.

When you are finished with the appliqué. Cut a slit in the background fabric behind the design and remove the freezer paper.

These are the two methods of appliqué that I personally use, however there are several other methods that can be explored.

On the website quilterscache.com there are instructions for many different techniques to quilt making. Also on the website connectingthreads.com, they have videos that show many different techniques to quilt making.