Texas on a Quilt

What says Texas more than a longhorn cow? In my variation on Abilene by Laura Heine, I intended to capture a hot summer night in Texas where the moon and cows are bigger than life!

When I first saw Laura Heine's Abilene in a local quilt shop I was intrigued. All those little pieces! How was it done? The subject: A longhorn cow, a true symbol of Texas! At the time I had too many projects and not enough time to do them. I knew my husband would give me a hard time about starting another project. "Are you going to finish it?" I know he would ask… So I walked away.

A year later Abilene was still with me and I had an opportunity to walk right into that quilt shop again. Ding rang the bell above the door… My eyes went straight to where the quilt hung… It was GONE! I thought I had missed my chance… but I was so inspired that I just had to ask if anyone remembered it. Sure enough, that was when I was officially introduced to Laura Heine's Abilene, and collage quilting.

Collage quilting has two very important secrets: 1) Steam-a-Seam Lite 2 and 2) tight quilting.

Steam-a-Seam Lite 2 is a double sided fusible interfacing that is sticky at first then permanent after heat is applied. Unlike other similar interfacings, it is extremely thin and after ironing, and doesn't leave a sticky residue. How do I know that little fact? I ran out of Steam-a-Seam Lite 2 and acquired another version… During the quilting process I could tell a difference between where I used the Steam-a-Seam Lite 2 and where I used the other. The machine had to work harder and there was a sticky residue on the needle that I had to clean every so often.

The second secret to this technique is in the quilting. You have to quilt in such a way that all the collage pieces are captured in the quilting. The example of Abilene used a half inch grid quilting technique. I used vertical wavy lines for another smaller project. Honestly, this is where the project goes from beautiful to gorgeous. While the quilting won't directly standout from the colors and fabrics of the collage, if quilted creatively, it will add to the splendor of the quilt. For my version of Abilene, I decided to do a modified stippling technique with sharp points in the directions the fur on the cow would go. I used meandering lines with occasional circles on the moon to mirror the craters, mountains and valleys that can be seen on a full moon at night.

To avoid complaints from my husband, I focused on using materials from my stash. The blue calico I had bought ages ago on sale, the backing came from my late grandmother's stash. My daughter and I went through my scrap pile (who doesn't have a overflowing scrap pile) to find all the browns, whites, reds, oranges and blacks. The blue calico because the true inspiration for the title, "Texas Summer Night". Cows just don't stand in space… so I added a moon and some whimsical butterflies that bring to me the warmth and beauty of a rural Texas summer night.

 When I began working on the cow, I though it would take forever… a few evenings later I was almost done placing all the collage strips. It goes that quickly, and its SO FUN! The quilting, however, took some time… well worth it! An unexpected surprise… turn the quilt over and you can see a cow with a sun in the background! Hot Texas summer anyone?

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