The very groovy winners of the Benartex Piece, Love & Quilts contest featuring the "Woodstock" fabric line are posted at www.benartex.com; to see them and several other entries - over 30 quilts! - click HERE. The grand prize winning quilt, shown here, is "Walking on Sunshine" by Serena Brooks of Los Angeles, CA. Way to go, Serena!

A few months ago I promised to show you a quilt I made with my sister's kids a few years ago, so here it is :) At the time there were several foster children in the house, in addition to my nephews, so altogether seven kids worked on this quilt, ages ranging from 7 to 13. I invited 2-3 of them over to my parents' house each day over my holiday to make the blocks (Auntie Jo isn't crazy enough to think she can sew with all seven at the same time!), then put them all together at my quilt guild retreat a few months later. Here's the basic "recipe" for making the quilt:

• Have a sewing machine already set up with neutral color thread (we used a Bernette 80e), and a bin of fabrics to choose from (I used my stash of Benartex BOBs).
• Have kids cut strips of fabric to make wonky log cabin blocks. I started the younger ones with a large center square; the older ones with a small square. It doesn't matter if the finished blocks aren't really square; you'll be trimming them and adding sashing.
• Kids trace their hands on Steam-a-Seam 2, adhere to fabric, cut along lines. I let the older kids fuse them to fabric squares; I pressed for the youngest ones. (See the green block with the dog and hamster foot prints? And the two light blue handprints? I watched the twins - at opposite ends of the table - pick out exactly the same fabric at the same time!)
• Let the kids play with fabric scraps and make up their own designs when the quilt blocks are done. We ended up with several little patchwork pillows - one of the boys even "discovered" the four-patch block :)
• I took the blocks home with me and added black-background sashing strips and bright cornerstones, stitched the handprints in place with a large blanket stitch, and tied the layers together with colorful buttons and YLI Jeans Stitch at the corners of each square. Then I bound the outer edge and added several labels to the back of the quilt (each child made their own).

This is a great project for grandkids, school groups, neighborhood children,... set up additional machines and bring in a few extra grown-ups to help if you're planning to have more than just a few kids working at the same time. It's also a perfect shower or going-away gift for a group of adults to make :)

Hello, Everyone!

I am so pleased to have the opportunity to talk to you about the excitement the 8 Series launch has created here at our BERNINA consumer event. It was such a proud moment when after six years of development, we were finally able to reveal this incredible machine and share its features with the world.  The engineers and developers in the BERNINA factory in Steckborn Switzerland have worked countess hours to create a big, beautiful BERNINA - spacious and comfortable, speedy and full of benefits that will make the creative sewers world more enjoyable and more efficient… that nothing compares to the feeling of its debut.

And now, you too can experience all the precision and exclusive features the 830 has to offer here on bernina8series.com. This enlightening and interactive website provides everything you will want to know about the 8 Series, including videos that illustrate its outstanding space, unsurpassed speed and ergonomic genius.

So go ahead and check out the machine that has changed the history of sewing. We hope it inspires you as much as it has everyone here at BERNINA.

Talk to you soon! And remember to keep checking back for more entries and details on the magnificent 8 Series.

No, not the last quilt I'll ever make, but the last quilt I finished. I have at least four quilts-in-progress - all of them full- or queen-size - that need blocks joined and borders added before I can quilt them. Plus sets of blocks I've purchased at flea markets - I'm not the only one that doesn't get quilts finished!

Foundation piecing, based on a quilt in Valori Well's Stitch 'n Flip Quilts book. (I think the border is a Valori Wells batik from years ago, but I'm not sure.) I started it about 4 years ago in a class at my local quilt shop, made all the blocks, then finished a year or so later it at a weekend retreat with my quilt guild. What a great way to sew! 50 women, 50 tables, 50 machines, nearly two full days of sewing, no distractions, dozens of opinons...

I had fun playing with the free-motion quilting on this one. The BERNINA Stitch Regulator hadn't been introduced yet, so all of the quilting was done using Freehand Quilting Foot #29. I like the wide, clear sole of this foot for quilting - I can see where I'm going, and use the edges of the foot to judge how far I am from previous lines of stitching. I couldn't decide which threads to use, so I used them all - variegated threads from YLI, Superior Threads, Mettler, Sulky - all of the pink/orange/yellow and green spools in my stash. This kind of quilt is great for practicing free-motion techniques - since none of the blocks match, the quilting doesn't have to look the same either. No worries about staying inside the lines, having equally-sized loops, putting squiggles in the same places - just move the fabric and "draw" shapes.

I finished another quilt the same weekend - a group quilt made with seven children ages 7-13. It's one of my favorites, but I'll share it with you another time.

My first quilt wasn't nearly as nice as Erika's, but it's been well-loved for over 25 years. I didn't have a clue what I was doing - the fabrics range from lightweight cotton bandanas to dense cotton/poly sheeting. It's folded like this so you can't see the parts where the thinner fabrics have worn completely away!

I love scrap quilts - each piece of fabric has its own story. Some of the squares in this quilt are from my mother's and grandmother's and aunts' fabric stashes, some from garments I'd sewn. The blue & black plaid in the corner is from a pair of shorts I made, the olive green from a top my mother wore in the '60s, the sheeting from my father's aunts...it's fun to sit down and go through them all one by one.

I stitched this together the summer before I started college. I'd been sewing my own clothes for years, but I didn't know much about how to put together a quilt. I had no idea how to apply the binding - it's still attached, so I guess it's doing its job, but I'm glad you can't see it up close! Binding a quilt isn't hard; you just need to know what to do. The Binding Basics Online Class at http://www.berninausa.com/home.jsp has instructions for several binding methods. My four-patch quilt uses - sort of - the single binding technique, using purchased binding. These days I cut my own bias strips and use the double binding method; I like to repeat fabrics from the blocks around the edges, and the two layers of fabric over the edge provide more protection than a single layer. (My quilts get used and loved and laundered a lot; if they were hanging on a wall a single fold binding would be fine.)  

There are so many tools now that make assembling a quilt easier - rotary cutters/mats/rulers, 1/4" presser feet (BERNINA Patchwork Foot #37 and Patchwork Foot with Guide #57), edgestitching feet (BERNINA Edgestitch Foot #10/10C), needle stop up/down features, adjustable needle position - so much easier than scissors, cardboard templates, and a single "all-purpose" foot!

I don't think I'd even heard of machine-quilting when I made this quilt, and I knew I didn't want to stitch it by hand, so I tied it with lengths of acrylic yarn (which has tangled and pilled over the years - I'd use embroidery floss or topstitching thread today). I come from a long line of hand-quilters, and I can hand-stitch when I have to, but I much prefer machine quilting. I've always liked to draw, and machine quilting is very much like drawing a line with a sewing machine needle instead of a pencil or pen. I can machine quilt just about as quickly as I can draw, so it doesn't take me long to complete a quilt once I get it set up. And it's soooo relaxing! Next week I'll show you some of my more recent pieces - which reflect some of the things I've learned through classes and books and looking at hundreds (maybe thousands?) of quilts.