I spent yesterday morning with my friend Jan, sharing my skills in quilting Baptist Fans. She brought chocolate chip cookies (yummy!) and contagious enthusiasm. My sister Becky supplied a bright, scrappy Halloween quilt top and I contributed my Avante and Groovy Boards. The photo doesn't do a good job of showing off the fabrics :(
Baptist Fans is a very traditional hand quilting pattern that has been adapted to continuous line machine quilting. I call the pattern Baptist Fans, have heard it called Methodist Fans. I wonder if there are quilters out there calling it the Seventh Day Adventist Fan or the Buddhist Fan.
We used Groovy Boards, made by HandiQuilter. They are grooved boards. Duh. The trick when using Groovy Boards (or pantographs) is aligning them correctly so the quilting pattern is straight and even with the quilt. Once the boards and the quilt are set up, a stylus fits down into the groove to guide the machine. Presto! Perfect Baptist Fan quilting! It is really mindless quilting, but the final product is fabulous! Quilting 101: Combine straight piecing lines with curved quilting lines.
You can see the quilting lines very nicely on this shot of the back:
Click here to see MORE photos of this quilt on Flickr.
