Box Kite & Bindings!

This is me, trying to take a photo of pressing a black 2” cut binding in half.

How do you take a photo of this when you are just one person? 

You can’t put the iron down on the fabric and hold the camera with two hands – I might scorch the fabric, that iron is hot!

So this is as much of an “action shot” as it’s going to be.

Yes, I’m using a 2” binding strip--- because I want a tight and full 1/4” binding on a quilt where the pieced border goes to the edge.

I am one of those who DOES press my binding in half.  I find if I don't that I get warping and twisting of the layers.  SHIFT happens!

If I press my binding in half first, it seems to hold together evenly when sewing it down with no creeping and crawling.

I could add another plain border to make the binding easier, but the quilt is already big enough, and sometimes I feel that adding a plain border outside the edge of the pieced border minimizes the effect of the pieced borders somehow.

If I want a quilt to end with POW ---I don’t add another plain fabric border outside of it, just to make it easier to bind.

Trimming up the quilt!

I know I’ve shown this before but with the Grand Illusion Mystery going on, we’ve got loads of new readers – so I’ll share a photo again of how this works.

After quilting, I use a large ruler with a good 1/4” line.  Putting the line on the triangle points…I trim 1/4” beyond the points so it is easy to put my binding on and not eat up those points in the process.

The Old with the New!

See that butterscotch colored triangle front and center?  Above the kokopeli and next to the ticking stripe with the apples. Yep.  That one.  Jason was about a year old when I bought that.  He is now 31.  This has been in my stash for 30 years.  Next to it is a house print from maybe the 1980s?  There is some new stuff in here too.  If you look at the fabric as COLOR, and stop worrying about the print, and you throw it all in – it all WORKS!

Quilt is trimmed!  Binding prepared!  Let’s go!

My set up!

I’ve left this machine set up with the walking foot attached because I’ve been doing a lot of bindings lately!

You can see that the walking foot is WIDER than the 1/4” I want to sew.  This is a straight stitch walking foot on a straight stitch vintage machine, so there is no way to needle over to get the 1/4” that I want like on a modern digital machine.

So I’ve used my Trusty Seam Guide ruler which has holes for 1/4”, 3/8”. 1/2”, 5/8” and 3/4” seams.  The needle is in the 1/4” hole..and I’ve used THE BEST SEAM GUIDE EVER in front of the walking foot so I have a good edge to sew up against when adding my 1/4” finished binding.

Binding Away!

The height of the guide, made from a piece of old hotel room key with a strip of scotch restickable mounting strip underneath is the perfect height to use as an edge when adding a binding, or doing regular piecing.  I can’t live without the combo of my ruler and the best seam guide ever ((Not sold in a quilt shop!)) to give me seams where I want them to be.

Look!  No chopped off points!

The narrow binding means that my pieced border will be the main focus at the edge of the quilt..the binding won’t over power it.

I hope to finish getting the binding on today – I want to hand sew the binding down while at the cabin this weekend.

And oh yeah – the Seam guides along with all of the books in my online store are STILL 20% off through Sunday during my SUPER CYBER SALE!  Click HERE to learn more!

Tomorrow Morning!  Bright and Early  ((Or later depending on which part of the globe you live!))

Grand Illusion, PART 2!!

PS --- I think the antibiotics and pain meds are kicking in for Sadie.  She didn’t seem to have nearly as much trouble climbing the stairs today, and her tail is wagging!

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