I d been making a Jewel Box quilt using

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1 Finished size 126 x 80cm (63 x 50in) Skill level Intermediate aterials Small pieces of bright fabric for the house blocks, approx. 2m in total 2m of black for the sashing and borders 2.7m of backing you will need a seam (avoid lime green!) 50cm for binding Light invisible thread Black thread for quilting the sashing and border D A N N N N N Fig 1 Basic house block B E L C I d been making a Jewel Box quilt using a black background and pure jewel-tone colours and had lots of leftover fabric which I carried over into a schoolhouse quilt. I set up an impromptu design wall in our dining room with a flannel sheet, turned over and sewn to make a sleeve for a broomstick which was hung over a picture frame. This gave me the space to audition various combinations of fabric for the houses. Having my bits and pieces in the dining room turned the quilt design into a family affair, with various children adopting different houses and everyone discussing my progress over dinner. A black background looked as the night sky. The idea was for each house to have its own personality and I had fun playing with my fabrics to achieve this. As the individual house blocks were completed I was able to pin them to the flannel and rearrange them until I found a pleasing pattern. I added the sashing and the piecing was complete. AND SO IT GOES... The top was the best thing I d pieced so far, I loved it. But I couldn t bear to quilt it because I was afraid of ruining it. It had taken me months of concerted effort to machine quilt the Jewel Box quilt and I just wasn t up for that kind of time commitment, not to mention neck and back stress. Hand quilting was not even a remote possibility. F J B G K H I A Dr J So my lovely top went into my UFO basket. Two years later my mother gave me a SuperQuilter (SQ) for a Christmas present. NEW LEASE OF LIFE Despite being diagrammatically challenged it was not difficult for me to set up. I played around, doodling various patterns on small practice quilts. I completed my first bed sized quilt, a scrappy pinwheel. I was thrilled! I had used the low loft cotton batting, Warm and Natural, which was a dream to quilt through and gave the quilt an old fashioned texture. After two months of experimenting I was ready to take on the Schoolhouse. I had the inspiration and knew just what I wanted to do. I was going to quilt a swirly smoke pattern coming out of the chimneys and flowing all over the black background. I used black thread as I was going after a subtle background texture. I also figured that black on black would disguise my mistakes! I named the quilt Fire Light and Chimney Smoke. The smooth movement of the SQ carriage made the swirls of smoke easy to draw. The free flowing design worked well as an overall pattern. After a week of sporadic swirling the background was finished and I was ready to go back and put in the architectural details on the houses. BEING PARTICULAR Each house needed to be different. I used real houses as my design source, taking note of various patterns in roofs, windows and doors even a thatched roof! In order to give the quilt a whimsical feel, I did not do any marking on the quilt. Instead, I went for a primitive look, almost like a children s drawing. This gave me the freedom to play with my quilting. I practised drawing patterns first on paper and once I was confident straight onto the quilt with clear monofilament thread. In the end, I decided that the irregularities gave the quilt charm. Finally, instead of a label on the back, I machine quilted the dedication, signature and date on my daughter Rosie s favourite house. She loves it! The Schoolhouse was machine quilted and bound in less than a month. This was good considering I have to fit my quilting time around the demands of a large family and small business. I enjoyed making this quilt and I am thrilled to have finished it! Each quilt I make teaches me something new, and if I were making this quilt all over again I would chose a different backing. The lime green I chose required green bobbin thread and I had lots of trouble with the thread tension because the bobbin thread kept showing on the top. If I had chosen a black patterned backing I could have used black thread in the bobbin as well as the top and I would have avoided this trouble. 52 December 2003 Popular Patchwork

2 Fire-Light and Chimney Smoke Perhaps artha ilne should have called this quilt Historic Houses Popular Patchwork December

3 TEPLATES SHOWN AT 100% D (Reverse for 'Dr' template) G E TO AKE A SIILAR QUILT House blocks Cut: Two rectangles x 2in of colour, chimneys (B) Three rectangles x 3in of black (A and C) One strip x 5 1 2in in black () Two strips x 5 1 2in in house colour () Three strips x 3 1 2in in house colour () Two strips x 3 1 2in for windows (N) One strip x 6 1 2in in black (l) Two strips 2 x 5in in house colour (J) One strip x 4 1 2in for door (H) One strip 1 x 2 1 2in for doorstep (I) One strip 2 x 5 1 2in in house colour (K) Cut pieces D and DR using template in black Cut piece E and G using template in house colour Cut piece F using template in black 1Piece the house into rows following Fig 1. Start at the top and join pieces A, B, C, D, A. 2Join the pieces cut from templates to create the roof. 3Join the windows and the house sides (N) together and then add the sections at the top and bottom. F 4Join the doorstep I to the door H and then add the house sides J, finally add K to the top. 5Press the pieces well and then carefully join the rows together. ake another 11 blocks the same way using different colours. Experiment with light and dark colour to achieve different looks. 54 December 2003 Popular Patchwork

4 Fig 2 The quilt layout JOINING THE BLOCKS 1Cut eight strips 2 x in in black (cut a strip across the width and then cut up into strips). 2Decide on the layout of the houses and add a sashing strip to either side of each house in the centre column. Join the other houses to the sashing strips to give four rows of three houses. 3Cut three strips of black 2 x in and join between each row to assemble the quilt top. 4Cut two border strips x 49in and add to the sides of the quilt. Press towards the border. 5Cut two strips x 50in and add to the top and bottom of the quilt. 6Piece the backing into a piece large enough to overlap the quilt by two or three inches. Press and lay RS down on the floor. Lay the wadding on top and the quilt on top RS up. Pin or tack all the layers together. If you are using the Superquilter, roll onto the fabric bars and miss this step! Fig 3 Ideas for quilting shown in red Popular Patchwork December

5 7See Fig 2 for quilting ideas for the houses. Look at the real houses in your street or on your way to work. It s amazing how many different styles there can be in a short journey. 8Quilt black swirls all over the sashing and borders, creating smoke from the chimneys. 9Trim the edges square and bind using 1 1 2in strips for a single binding or 2 1 4in strips for a folded binding. Remember to add a label or sign 10 and date the front. Put to the TEST Davina Thomas puts the Superquilter to the test Not having space for a giant long arm machine and needing something that will pack away again when not in use I was intrigued by the Superquilter and decided to have a testdrive to see if it really did live up to it s promise of efficient quilting while being economical with space. I was in love from the first moment. The machine glides over the fabric so smoothly that it is no effort at all to quilt. When you first set up the machine you need to tape the fabric leaders to the bars but once they are in position they can stay in place, unless of course you need to extend the bars (it comes compete with extension kit). I was determined to set it up by myself so that those who don t have a handy DIY man at home would know it was possible. And I assure you, it is much easier than any flat pack furniture. TEST ONE y first test was quilting on plain calico. I practised swirls, vermicelli, boxes and grids. I progressed to the table runner (page 8), quilted with invisible thread in rough swirls and patterns. I asked my local Project Linus rep for some quilt tops and started quilting. Let s see how long it these take! Two 4ft tops were each quilted in about 40 minutes. I offered to try tacking a top for my mother which was 6ft by 7ft. I set my machine to a tacking stitch (which misses two stitches and takes one) and to half speed. By pressing carefully on the foot pedal it was possible to take about 2in stitches and I worked my way from side to side across the top and finished in under an hour. If you don t have a tacking stitch you could use wash away thread, which could be dissolved when the hand quilting was finished. TEST TWO Next, I tried a top in which I had quilted the middle section but not finished. Admittedly, it was a bit trickier getting the tension right (probably due to poor pinning the first time round). But all in all there was no stopping me. I still have three more Project Linus quilts to do, but with the Superquilter, I know that I can quilt and finish in a morning and it is easier to volunteer to help out more. THE RESULT Easy to dismantle and store, the Superquilter is great if you haven t got a lot of space. You do need to get used to standing on the foot pedal, but as you move across the quilt top you naturally move and this helps avoid stiffness. The first time I used it I was probably too tense and was stiff as a board the next day but I have used it many times since with no after effects. It has transformed my quilting life. I know that in theory we should plan the quilting, but more often than not I just would vermicelli all over. aybe it s because you are looking down onto the quilt top with more visibility or the fact that the quilt is spread out that it is easier to plan ahead and quilt more interesting patterns. This won t turn you into a super quilter overnight without a bit of effort, but it will certainly help. Popular Patchwork December