The Tempted Soul (27 page)

Spelling and definitions from Eugene S. Stine,
Pennsylvania German Dictionary
(Birdboro, PA: Pennsylvania German Society, 1996).

In the Amish Quilt trilogy, the characters make a quilt they call “Sunrise Over Green Fields,” signifying the hope of the Cross rising over our lives and work. I hope you’ll join me in making it as well, so I’ve divided the instructions into three parts to go with the three books in the series.

In
The Wounded Heart
, we began by piecing the quilt blocks. In
The Hidden Life
, we assembled the blocks together with background blocks and triangles, then sewed the borders. (You can find these instructions on my website, www.adinasenft.com, and also on the FaithWords website, www.FaithWords.com.) Now, in
The Tempted Soul
, we’ll choose quilting patterns, mark them on the fabric, and quilt. Lastly we’ll bind the edges, and our quilts will be finished! If you’re new to quilting, you’ll want to read through all of the instructions before you get started.

Batting comes in a number of different weights, so choose one that will give you warmth without being so thick that you can’t get a needle through it. Cut a piece of quilt batting at least 3 inches wider on each side than your pieced top.

Cut a piece of backing fabric at least 3 inches wider on each side than the dimensions of your quilt top. You may need to stitch a couple of widths together, or you can do as the women in the story did and create a simple piecing design for the backing out of leftover fabric. In any case, remember that the quilting designs will show on the back, so you want any piecing you do there to complement the quilting pattern.

Using safety pins or T-pins, pin together all thicknesses of the piecing, batting, and backing, making sure that right sides of your piecing and backing face out. Start in the middle and pin toward the borders in sections, making sure there are no folds or wrinkles in any of the layers. Some quilters choose to baste the thicknesses together, using long, fast stitches. Use the method most comfortable for you.

There are several methods you can use for your quilt pattern.

You may simply want to “stitch in the ditch” (meaning laying your quilting stitches in the seams of the piecing) and make a grid of diamonds or squares to follow the lines in the piecing.

Amelia, Emma, and Carrie chose to make this stitched grid over the pieced blocks, quilt flower patterns using templates in the plain blocks, and quilt a feathered border on the wide border pieces, also using the plastic templates. You can order beautiful “feather” and arabesque-curve templates online, or buy them in a quilting store.

Do what satisfies your creativity the most. Some quilters use a long-arm quilting machine and simply freestyle the entire quilt in a stippled pattern. If you don’t own one of these, some quilting stores will let you rent time on theirs. There are many ways to quilt—as long as it results in your top, batting, and backing being permanently and attractively stitched together.

In most quilt or fabric stores, you will find plastic templates with punched-out quilt designs. Choose patterns that fit the dimensions of your blocks.

Lay the template on the pieced top where you want to quilt the design and, using dressmaker’s chalk or the marking pencils made for quilters (never a lead pencil—it won’t wash out), mark your designs using firm, quick strokes. They will brush off or wash out afterward.

You can choose to quilt by machine or by hand. If you use a machine, you’ll need to roll the quilt up so that you can work in one small area at a time. A “walking foot,” or a special presser-foot attachment that allows the feed dogs to feed the quilt top at the same time as the bottom, is a good addition to your sewing box.

If you stitch by hand, thread a needle and, instead of doing one stitch at a time along your pattern lines, rock the needle in and out of the layers evenly so that the fabric bunches up on it. This is called “loading the needle.” Then pull the thread through. An accomplished quilter can load ten stitches to the inch. The most I ever did was seven, so don’t feel bad if you can’t manage that many. Your goal is close, even stitches, no matter how many go on the needle at a time.

Or, you can do a combination. Stitch by machine along the long diagonal rows, which not only cuts down the time but also anchors your three layers so they won’t travel while you hand-quilt your patterns.

Binding is the last step in making your quilt. There are two different methods you can use. Amish women bring their backing fabric up and over the other two layers, fold over the raw edge, and enclose the raw edges of the batting and pieced top in a “self” binding. So that’s what we’ll do.

Alternatively, you can use strips of a fabric that contrasts with or is complementary to the binding in order to add a colorful finish to your quilt. I like to double the fabric to make a good, tough edge that will not wear through easily with use.

For this method, you will have already left extra backing fabric around the quilt. The following measurements will create a 1-inch binding:

1. Trim the backing fabric so it extends 2 inches beyond the edge of the quilt on all four sides to create the binding fabric. 
   
2. Trim the batting so it is the same dimension as the quilt top, being careful not to cut the backing fabric. 
   
3. Fold the raw edge of the binding inward 1/2 inch. 
   
4. Press the doubled edge of the binding fabric. 
   
5. Fold the binding inward again so that the doubled edge meets the raw edge of the quilt top and batting. 
   
6. Fold the binding inward a third time, over the raw edges of the quilt, on top of the pieced top of the quilt. 
   
7. Pin the binding to the quilt to hold it in place on all four sides. 
   
8. Sew through the binding and all layers of the quilt ¼ inch from the inner edge of the binding (the edge that is on top of the pieced layer of your quilt). 
   
9. Finally, sew the edge of binding that overlaps at the corners down. 
   

Enjoy your new quilt!

1. In the Amish community, children are viewed as a blessing from God, to be given in God’s time. At the same time, there is some social pressure on a woman to have children. Do you see these as mutually exclusive? Does Carrie? 
   
2. Have you ever been in a situation where you were under social pressure to conform to expectations? 
   
3. What were these expectations like? What did you do? 
   
4. Carrie does everything she can to be a mother, including skirting along the edges of the
   Ordnung
   . Do you feel she was right or wrong to push the boundaries? 
   
5. What might you have done the same or differently as Carrie? 
   
6. Do you think the Bontragers should have taken baby Rachel in, since they were her blood family? 
   
7. What do you think makes a family—is it the blood relationship or something else? 
   
8. What do you think caused Lydia Zook to refuse the role of motherhood? 
   
9. Do you think Lydia was right or wrong to give up her baby? 
   
10. As Carrie, Amelia, and Emma look to the future, what do you see for them? 
    

The Wounded Heart

The Hidden Life

Available from FaithWords wherever books are sold.

“This relatable story, which launches Senft’s Amish Quilt series, shows that while waiting to see God’s plan can be difficult, remembering to put Jesus first, others next and yourself last (“JOY”) is necessary.”

—RT Book Reviews

“With this quaint, gentle read, Senft’s promising series is off to a good start and will make a nice alternative for Jerry S. Eicher readers who want to try a new author.”

—
Library Journal

“Any book that can both entertain and leave me thinking is a book worth reading! Adina Senft is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers of Amish fiction.…Senft's characters are beautifully developed, [and they] will move you to both laugh and cry.”

—
Christian Fiction Addiction

“I absolutely loved
The Hidden Life
! Nothing is as enjoyable as feeling the same way the characters do throughout the story and believing that you are mixed into the same world. I felt this way throughout the book because the characters are so relatable and interesting.…Overall I felt Adina captured the Amish way of life with fine detail. Be prepared to become an even bigger fan of Adina’s after you read this book.”

—DestinationAmish.com

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