Applying Binding to a Quilt Part 1

In a couple of the last few blogs that I have done, I gave a how-to on making bias binding and cross grain binding. Regardless of which kind of binding you have made, you have to get it on the quilt.

As I posted previously, I like making my binding 3/8 of an inch wide which means that I want to apply the binding with the raw edges together and seaming with just less than a 3/8 inch seam from the edge. I use the walking foot that I purchased with my machine and it has a 1/4 inch mark on the foot (the arrow/circle indicates the mark). You can see that my fabric is out just past that mark.

Now, having done yards and yards of binding over the years with this machine, I know just where to sew to get the width that I always use. You may have to practice a bit to get it just right. The type of batting and "hand" the fabric has also affects where you sew the binding, too. I know the few times that I have used a different fabric or batting, I have had to adjust either the position of the needle or where the raw edges line up in my machine.

Applying the binding is easy on the straight of way. Begin in the center of one side of the quilt. All you do is keep the fabric straight and let the machine do the work. The hard part for me is sewing the corners. I place a pin 3/8 inches before the end of

the fabric and sew until I hit this mark and backstitch a few stitches. This makes sure that the corner will be easier to hand sew later.

You have to remove the quilt from the machine at this point -- each side of the quilt is sewn separately. And the sides start and end at the corner.







To get a great sharp corner, don't rush through these steps. First fold the binding up creating a triangle and let the leading end of the binding flip back over the side you just completed.












Then fold the fabric back on itself.










At this point there will be a small triangle of binding that will flip off the corner of the quilt.

Again, place a pin at the 3/8 inch from the raw edges at the top and begin sewing here. If you have been careful, you won't have sewn past the 3/8 inch mark and will get a really great corner.

Continue to sew all of the remaining sides and corners until you get back to the side that you started the binding. You will want to stop sewing about 8 to 10 inches before your starting point. And trim the binding off at a 45 degree angle about half way between the start and finish of the sewing.

Open both ends of the binding and overlap the just cut end over the beginning end. On the wrong side of the fabric use a pen to mark where the binding hits.











Make sure that the line is at a 45° angle -- you can see that I have lined up the edge of the binding with the 45° angle on my ruler -- and draw the line even darker. and all the way across.

Now thing carefully before this next step. You are going to line up your just marked line on the 1/2 inch line of your ruler. The end of the fabric will be where you are going to cut.

CAREFUL! If you are on the other side, you will cut your binding 1/2 inch too short. I tell you this from experience as I have had to add extra binding and redo the cut more times than I care to admit!!

Pin the two ends together so that the little "dog ears" are a 1/4 inch wide. Then sew the binding together with a quarter inch seam. You can finger press the seam to the side and stretch out the fabric and press it with an iron to get a nice crease.

Then sew up that last little opening.

Next up hand finishing!

Happy binding!

Practice Pattern Continued -- Round 3

I am not a quitter, I am not a quitter, I am not a quitter!!! Or so I keep telling myself.

In our last episode on Butterick 5924, I made adjustments to increase the size of the bust line. I marked and cut the four new pieces of muslin for the pattern. Then I reassembled the blouse.

When I tried it on I still had fitting issues. I found that I must have incorrectly measured the length from the center nape of neck to the bust point. The bust point was too high and the dart points were really too pointy. The muslin was also a bit snug at the chest through the arm's eye.

I have gone back to the pattern and cut out a box around the dart. I slid the cut out about 1.25 inches lower and used green tissue paper to fill in the gap. I then lengthened the center line of the dart and redrew the dart legs. Lastly, I folded the pattern at the dart and redrew the side seam. Hopefully this will solve the dart problem.

I am also going to try to increase one pattern size up on the front side seams only. The back is plenty wide enough and I should be able to ease the sleeves in regardless of those changes. I have made so many changes to this pattern piece that if it needs any more changes, I may not be able to see my marks! Now to start the new muslin pieces.

Happy adjusting!

Binding On the Cross Grain

I can't believe that it has been almost 3 months since I finished this quilt top. I last posted about  "Is There Enough Pink in This Quilt?" way back in May when I had finished putting it together. Since then, it was to the quilter and back and has been languishing on a living room chair since my DD and FSIL (that's future son-in-law to the abbreviation challenged, LOL) were here in July and I began researching and practicing for the wedding dress. But since I am trying to clear my sewing schedule, I need to get these baby quilts done and out the door. So today, I am making more binding; but instead of binding made on the bias that I posted a few days ago, this is easier binding to make on the cross grain.

I am making binding out of the same fabric that was used as backing for this quilt. I love the cool, bright, lime green back ground against the mostly hot pink and orange quilt top. But it does well since there is cool green and blue on the front and the green fabric features hot orange and pink hearts.

This binding is cut cross grain -- from salvage to salvage. Binding can be made in many different widths. However, I like mine to be about 3/8 of an inch wide on the quilt. You will have to decide how wide you like your binding and then practice to see how wide you need to cut your binding to get it just right. I always cut my strips 2 and 1/4 inch wide. The advantage to using the same width all the time is that you can use all of your left over binding to bind a really wild looking quilt!

Once the strips are cut, you can attach them to make one continuous binding. Lay the strips with right sides together at right angles to each other. I like to use the grid on my cutting board to line them up.






Then using a ruler and a pen or pencil, draw a straight line between the corners and pin the fabric with a couple of pins to keep the fabric from shifting. You can make the line going from top left corner to bottom right corner as I show at the right; or you can make it from the top right to the bottom left. I make the line this direction as I am right handed and I hold the ruler down with my left hand -- just be consistent so that all the angles go the same directions.

Sew along the line that you drew in the last step, removing the pins as you go. (Sometimes, I get lazy and don't pull out the pins as I am sewing, but then, sure enough, I break the needle on my machine. I just did this two days ago. Thankfully. I had plenty of spares!)

After sewing all of the strips together, don't ignore the next step: pressing the joins. As much as you may think that you can just open up the strip and fold it in half -- DON'T! Proper pressing is the key to getting nice sharp creases and binding that looks crisp -- not sloppy. And when I say "press" I don't mean "iron" -- there is a difference. In pressing the weight of the iron and the heat does all the work; ironing is when the iron is moved back and forth across the fabric -- here you want to press.

First press the sewing line to "set the seam" -- steam helps although some would say it is not necessary. Setting the seam gets rid of slight puckers and is the beginning to crisp looking seams. Then flip the fabric open and press both seams to one side. I have had some people tell me that they open the seam to make the binding flatter, but I think that it weakens the binding by putting stress on the thread. Again, press the seam open -- the cut is on the bias and may stretch if you iron.

Last but not least, fold the binding in half and press again down the length of the binding. The binding for this baby quilt is only about 5 strips of 44 inch fabric long and I had a little left over for my future wild and crazy quilt. Stay tuned for my next post and I will show you how to apply the binding that we just made.

Happy quilting!

Flowers and Bows

I know what you are thinking: "Flowers and Bows? Aren't you missing something in your description?"

Well that may be true, but "Skulls" just doesn't sound like a baby quilt. This quilt was really fun to do, but very tedious as well. I cut 112 different 2 1/2" squares for the inside borders out of more than 20 different fabrics. To make certain that I did not end up with any matching squares too close together, I laid the whole quilt out on a table and sewed the blocks together carefully keeping them in order. So not only was it fun, but tedious -- as was blanket stitching around all the eye sockets and nasal holes. My current project "Go Fish!" will certainly be much easier.

This one will be on the way to the quilter soon!

Happy quilting!

Go Fish! - Another Edition in the Long Line of Baby Quilts

Last week was a very busy week--unfortunately it was not busy sewing or knitting-wise! I didn't get a stitch of work in all week. So, I had to make up for it this weekend. I finished the skull quilt top on Saturday afternoon and then started cutting out pieces for the newest baby quilt: Go Fish!

I cut out 16 fish using a pattern that I made from a fish outline coloring page that I found on the internet. Eight fish are facing right and 8 are facing left.

On the left you see the rare Button Fish.

These should be really easy to blanket stitch around. Certainly easier than the skulls!

Here is the "funny" little fish called "Carrot Top".

I put an inner border of yellow, red and blue striped fabric with green corner blocks. Now all I have to do is figure out what I will do for the final border.

Happy Quilting!

How To Make Binding on the Bias

One of my favorite quilting things is binding a quilt with a stripe, a check or a plaid on the bias. It gives a quilt a wonderful diagonal look to the edging and a sense of movement. But creating a bias binding has a few tricks to it, so I thought I would share how I make it, pictorially.

This a fun, wavy plaid in shades of blue that I am going to use on Flying in Formation.

The first step is to match the salvages and square the fabric. Use a clear ruler with a grid to line up the fold opposite the salvage and cut a 90° angle.

Then cut off one salvage edge. Be careful to cut evenly! You will be matching this edge with the last edge to get a 45° angle.

Fold the salvage up to meet the first cut you made. This will create a 45° angle in the fabric. At this point, ironing becomes very important! Iron the fabric using plenty of steam. Make sure you get a good crease.

Now taking the ruler again, cut off the fold that you created in the last step.










Spread out the fabric so that the diagonal cut in the center is side by side.

Take the piece of fabric on one side (here I have the taken the piece on the right and moved it across the left piece and match up the vertical / perpendicular sides.

Pin these two edges with right sides together.

Sew the line removing the pins as you go. Press the seam to one side. On the right side of the fabric, draw lines that are apart the width of the binding that you want. CAREFUL! Make sure that you draw the lines on the diagonal of the pattern -- diagonally to the seam you just made. If you draw the lines perpendicular with the seam then you will end up with regular binding, but went the long way around to get there!

 On one end of the lines, write the numbers beginning with "1". . .

and on the other end of the lines, write the numbers beginning with "2".








Then join the two sides to form a tube matching up the numbers.

Your "tube" will be off set by one number. If you start cutting here along the line, as you go around the tube you will find yourself cutting one long continuous line of binding.

Just keep cutting until you get to the end, or until you reach the skinny piece on the end.

Iron the binding in half length-wise and attach to the quilt.

Don't know how to attach it to a quilt? Stay tuned and Happy Binding!

Practice Pattern Continued -- Starting Over

For the last couple of days, I have been working on my practice blouse. I got all of the muslin pieces cut out and marked using the tracing wheel and waxed tracing paper as I told you in my last post.

Then, using my sewing machine and a dark colored thread, I sewed along the seam lines on each pattern piece to both stabilize the seams (especially on the lower bias pieces) and also give an unfading and tactile seam. This makes it pretty easy to pin the pieces together. You can literally use your fingers to slide the seams together and they "stick" when they are in the right place.

I then constructed the body pieces, less the sleeves and the collar. Pinning is
an important detail. It takes a lot of time to pin seams carefully. It is so much faster to throw in only a couple of pins -- or no pins at all -- and fly through the seams. But that is not the way of couture sewing. Couture is a slow, meditative process not a way to knock out an outfit on a Saturday afternoon. (Just today I read an article about how factory workers sew in ready-made clothing faster then home sewers. One reason was not using pins.)

figure 1

I was so excited as I went to try on the muslin for the first time. Ten seconds later I realized that the -- er, um -- "endowment" my mother gave me was going to mean going back to the drawing board. But that also meant that I could use the book that I reviewed last week!

I read up on how to adjust the bodice of a pattern for a larger bust. And then just followed the directions step by step. I drew my lines onto the pattern with a pink marker (figure 1), cut carefully and spread apart the cut pieces as the book described.

figure 2

You can see the yellow tissue paper from my gift wrapping stash that I used to fill in the gaps left by the cuts (figure 2). I used tape on both the front and back of the pattern piece to hold everything together so that I would not get any shifting.

figure 3

Since it was necessary to widen the top piece, I also had to widen the bottom front pattern piece. After lining up the top front and bottom front pieces, I marked the position of the cut onto the waistline of the bottom piece and took that line down to the hemline parallel to the center front line. I cut down the line and then slipped in another piece of the yellow tissue paper for fill in and taped it up matching the width of the gap in the top front (figure 3). The cut made the bias grain line jog, so I redrew it with the pink marker.

Next, I get to cut out the four pieces, mark them with the tracing wheel and paper, sew the seam lines in and reconstruct the body. Then we will see if my adjustments fixed the problem.

Happy sewing!