Stitched-in corners binding tutorial

A couple months ago I mentioned that I start binding at the corners and never have to join the two binding ends along the side. The few times I attached binding the traditional way I ended up with a little bulge where I joined the binding on the side, yuk. If you use the method in this tutorial, you'll never have to join the binding ends, and you'll have beautifully mitered corners.

A few words before I begin:
I took a class from Sharon Pederson about 3 months after I started quilting, and she mentioned this binding method in passing. It's in both of her books (Reversible Quilts and More Reversible Quilts), but she said she didn't develop the method -- someone showed her. I tried it and love it, and I really like the way the corners look. But a year ago I took a class from Sally Collins, who is extremely precise, and asked her about this method -- she had never tried it, but didn't think the results would be as good as the traditional method of applying binding. Her bindings are beautiful indeed, but mine never looked that good.

Ok, here goes! Are you ready?
For this explanation, I'm assuming you'll be using a 2-1/2" strip folded in half to make a 1-1/4" double-folded binding. Seam allowances are 1/4". Be sure to use thread that matches the binding! This is important as you might see a bit of thread where the miter is stitched in, especially if you are overly zealous when turning out the corners.

1. Stitch binding onto one side. Leaving about a 3" tail at the beginning, stitch the binding down one side. Always reinforce the beginning and end of each row by backstitching or doing a knot stitch if your machine has one.
Start stitching 1/4" inch from the top edge (I folded the tail back so you could see this in the photo). I measure this, because the corners look best when they meet exactly.
When you get near the end of the first side, use your ruler to find 1/4" from the end and put a dot on the binding so you will stop exactly there. (If for some reason you are using a 3/8" seam, then start and stop 3/8" from the edge.) I adjust the stitch length for the last few stitches if I need to so I stop right on the dot. Reinforce the end with backstitching or a knot stitch, then remove the quilt from the machine and cut the binding, leaving a short tail at this end also.
2. Stitch a triangle to make the corner miter. You are going to join the binding that you attached to the first side to the binding for the next side by stitching them together at the corners. You'll stitch a little triangle that when opened up will form a mitered corner.
a) Using your ruler, draw a line across the binding from the folded edge to the very end of the seam line. The line should be exactly 1/4" from the bottom edge of the quilt. If you started with a 2-1/2" strip folded in half to measure 1-1/4", then your line (which stops at the seam) should measure exactly 1". Put a dot exactly in the middle of the line, at 1/2" from either edge. If your binding is a little off, just note the measurement that you have and put a dot exactly in the middle of that. (And if you used binding of a different width, adjust your measurements -- a 2" binding folded to 1" with a 1/4" seam gives you a line that is 3/4" long, so your dot in the center would be at 3/8" from either end.)
b) Use your ruler to mark a dot exactly 1/2" beyond the dot in the middle of your baseline. (If your measurements are different, adjust that distance accordingly -- if your baseline dot is 3/8" in from either side, then make this dot 3/8" above the line.) Use your ruler to connect the new dot to each edge of the baseline. You'll have drawn a triangle like the one in the photo above. Be sure the triangle points out, not back towards the quilt!

3. Pin and stitch the binding for the next side to the binding you just stitched on. This step is the only fiddly part of doing the binding, and it's not hard because you use pins to keep everything from slipping. Lift up the end of the stitched-down binding and place the folded edge of the new binding, exactly even with folded edge of the first binding. The triangle will be on top and the new binding underneath the binding you already stitched on. Pin the binding on both sides of the triangle -- be sure to keep the folded edges exactly even. I use two pins, each at a different angle, on each side to be sure things don't slip. It sounds tricky, but if you pin, it's not. I pin far enough from the triangle that I don't need to worry about removing the pins while I stitch.
Now it's time to stitch in the triangle, which will join the two pieces of binding. (I neglected to take a photo of this in the machine, so here is a photo of stitching the last side to the first -- the only difference is that your second piece of binding won't be stitched to the quilt like the one in the next photo is.)
Start at the side of the triangle by the seam, and put your needle down exactly where the line hits the seam. Use a small stitch and sew to the top of the triangle, then turn and sew to the baseline at the folded edge. Reinforce the beginning and the end by a knot stitch or backstitch. In the photo below, you can see the triangle stitched in (for purposes of teaching, it's too bad the thread is the same color, but put on your reading glasses and look closely, you can see the stitches). See how nice and flat the bindings lie along the sides!
4) Stitch the second piece of binding down. Start exactly at the corner where the seam ended on the first side, always reinforcing the beginning and end points.
In the photo above you can see how the corners look on the back -- each side exactly meets up with the other. So pretty! Now continue in exactly this way until you have stitched the binding to all four sides and made triangles on 3 corners.

5) Stitch in the last corner. This is done exactly like the first three, except that both sides of the binding are stitched down. This actually makes it a tiny bit easier! Yay! The hard work is over.

6) Trim the seams and turn the corners. You don't want lots of bulk in the corners, so trim the seams around the little triangles. They'll look like this.
Turn the corners right side out, using a pointy chopstick to push out the end of the corner. You have a stitched in miter! Here's the front ...
...and here's the back.
7) Handstitch the binding down in the back. It's so wonderful not to worry about the corners when you're stitching -- they're done! No fiddly folding. Here's the back...
...and here's the front after the handstitching. Mission accomplished! And no joining the binding on the side!
If you have any questions, please let me know and I will edit the post to make it clearer if need be. Happy quilting!

Linus worknight

So many people came to our worknight last night that we had to have some people in a different room! It was great, but a little crazy...
With so many people, we got a lot accomplished. For our string quilt this time we used blue and orange -- Fighting Illini colors because a lot of kids in this area are huge fans. Each block has one strip of Illini fabric, and we'll use a mostly-orange Illini fabric for the backing. I love randomly chosen strings, but sometimes it's fun to have a theme of some sort.
I posted this when half the blocks were made, but now the top is completely pieced and ready to be quilted!
These are oblong blocks that we ask guild members to make of their scraps and then turn in to us. I have two boxes of them! Last night we joined four blocks around a center square and now have quite a few of those big blocks (there are 9 in the photo). We'll get several tops from all the big blocks assembled last night.
And this fish top is done! Yay!!!

Thank you all so much for your suggestions on piecing batting! I am going to try it without the fusible next time.

And I had success at the fabric store looking for more fabric for my twister quilt! Some fabrics are already in there, some are not ... stay tuned!

Some very white photos

This is the batting corner corner for my guild's Project Linus stash. You can see we have two huge rolls of batting (one in front, one still in plastic in the back), generously donated by the company that produced it. Unfortunately, it's only 36" wide! I think I've complained about this before.
Several people have suggested ways to piece batting, and now that I have a quilting table, I thought I'd give one of them a try. We have a worknight tonight and I wanted to know before then whether the method I chose would work. It did!
I took two pieces of batting and laid the edges so they butted together perfectly. These were clean cut edges from the manufacturer, but I'm told that with scraps you might want to overlap edges and cut them with a wavy line so they mesh perfectly. I ironed on a tiny strip of fusible web to join the two pieces (you can see the paper still on the fusing in the above photo), then stitched them together with the biggest zig zag possible on my machine. It took just a few seconds to do the whole seam and it lies perfectly flat! Sorry, couldn't get any photos that showed the stitches. But if you want to try joining batting pieces, this seems to work well. If the straight seam becomes a problem, I'll try a wavy edge next time.

One card short of a deck

...and one block short of a quilt. Before I started, I calculated whether a jelly roll would make this quilt, and it would, no problem. But then I had to leave out 4 strips for lack of contrast, and now I'm half a block short. (There are 12 blocks in the quilt.) I got to this point (7 blocks) in putting them on the design wall when I started to wonder.
Fortunately, the LQS has some of these fabrics on bolts -- I hope some of the lighter ones! -- so I should be able to finish the quilt. I may even be able to switch out some of the lower contrast ones if I can find the right fabrics.

Do you love your stash?
DD#1 is a knitter, and she sent me a link to a very funny post by the Yarn Harlot (don't you just love that blog name?). She's talking about yarn, but fabric can cause the same reaction. Check out Hey Beautiful, that is your name isn't it?

And I leave you with a photo of another simple donation blanket I made a week or two ago. It's the Fringed Fleece pattern from Project Linus. If you don't have much time but want to make a donation blanket, it's a terrific pattern.

A twisted mini-retreat

About a year ago I bought this Jelly Roll on an impulse. I'd never bought a Jelly Roll before and had no idea what to do with one, but those colors! I love saturated brights anyway, but it was January and I could just feel the sun shining when I looked at these. I left them on my desk near the computer for awhile, but eventually put them in the closet where they languished until my guild's mini-retreat yesterday.

I love going to these sew-alongs because it's fun to visit with everyone and I get so inspired by people's projects, but I do find it awkward to work in a cramped space without my stash. I thought I might piece an I Spy that I had already cut out, but I was afraid I wouldn't have enough space to lay the whole thing out. Then I saw Bonnie's post on the Super Bowl Twist, and I knew what to do! I stitched up a little sunshine on the last day of January.
Bonnie's directions emphasized that contrast was important, so I laid out some strip set possibilities and checked for contrast. I learned that the Jelly Roll had more darks than lights and quite a few fabrics that I would classify as mediums -- but of course, that depends on what they are next to.
I ended up with 4 strips left that just would not give me the contrast I needed. But Bonnie showed a photo of Freida B's Strip Twist quilt with a terrific diagonal border, so I plan to mix these up with the ends of the strip sets to make a border like that myself.
All the blocks are pieced (this is a very quick quilt when you start with pre-cut strips), but I haven't gotten my design wall up again since I got my new sewing table, so I couldn't lay the whole thing out.
Desperately wanting to see what it was going to look like, I put a few blocks out on the floor. So much fun! Tonight's the Super Bowl, so I may get the design wall up and the quilt laid out then. I am incredibly grateful that my husband isn't a big sports fan. Most years his football watching consists of tuning in to at least part of the Super Bowl. This year he's invited a friend who has about his level of interest in the game over to watch with him, and we're getting Indian take-out for dinner. My laugh for the day came when DH worried about having a long wait for the food because everyone would be getting take-out for the game. I think the pizza delivery guy will be busy, but I doubt there'll be a long line for aloo tikki chat!

Everyone should clean out the closet now and then

A few days ago I was trying to find the right size sheets in the linen closet and decided it was time to reorganize and maybe get rid of a few things. When I lifted the stack off the top shelf, look what I found!
I had forgotten all about this little crib quilt that I made about 20 years ago! I had made a disastrous attempt at quilting in college and still had no idea what I was doing. I had some fabric scraps from baby clothes I had made, that dark blue with yellow and red flowers was from an apron I made in high school (!!), I had some scraps from my sister, etc. Most of the squares date from the 1970's, a few from the 60's. I pieced them together and then went to the fabric store for help. The clerk was not a quilter (no quilt shops in town then) and so it was the blind leading the blind. I ended up using a polyester batting, folding the back over the front to make the border, and then tying the quilt. But it has held up to many washings. I can't believe I forgot this quilt! We had it out in the family room when the kids were little, so it was in constant use for many years.
And here are the other two 9 patches I made for Bumble Beans' fundraiser quilt (you can read about it on my previous post). Digging in my scrap bin was another trip down memory lane. All the fabrics but one are from the last few years when I took up quilting, but that darker blue is from a maternity dress I made when I was pregnant with DD#1, who is now 24 years old. I was never much of a seamstress because I couldn't get things to fit properly, but that doesn't matter much with clothes for babies and pregnant ladies!

It's here!!

Ta-daaa!

My new sewing table arrived 2-1/2 weeks ago, but I had to wait and wait and wait until the insert to fit my machine arrived. It finally got here yesterday evening! The table doesn't look like much, but it is so wonderful to sew on a machine that sits in a table instead of on it. I just love it. This is a Sew Perfect table, much less expensive than most cabinets, and I got a great price on their end-of-the-year, pre-inventory sale. DH gave up his Sunday afternoon to put the table together (thank you!!) so it would be all ready to go when the insert arrived.
Simple and quick seemed the way to go while I got the feel of the new table, so I decided to use my scraps to make some 9 patches. Bumble Beans is collecting them to make a quilt as a fundraiser for Love without Boundaries. Do go read about the money she and her daughter raised to help a Chinese orphan in need of medical care -- you'll probably start making 9 patches to send her as soon as you do!
Next I started putting together a sample Streak of Sunshine quilt. Make A Blanket Day for Project Linus is coming up, and I'm in charge of getting the projects ready for the event my LQS is hosting that day. We're doing Heartstring quilts, but I wanted some other projects, too. This is such an easy quilt, very cute, and perfect for using the odds and ends of donated fabric that we have to work with. Don't these fabrics look like springtime? With all the snow and frigid temps we've been having, I really needed to spend some time with these colors!

Now that I have such a great table, it's time to use it! For the record, these are the things I need to get done:
Quilt Landon's I Spy quilt -- I've been waiting until I got my table for this
Project Improv -- the quilt for our family room (finally!) and my chance to play
Erin's I Spy -- I hope to piece this on Saturday at a guild mini-retreat
Kathi & Buz's t-shirt quilt -- I thought I had until summer when they returned from overseas, but their plans changed and they came back this month
Kim's wedding quilt -- I've made I Spy quilts for all my nieces' and nephews' kids, but Kim has no children, so she gets a wedding quilt
Stroop quilt -- I just need to do it!

Happy quilting, everyone!

Sweet Treat bags and donation quilts

If you've ever been to a major quilt show, you know what Sweet Treats are. They are yummy fat quarter bundles of 8 coordinating fabrics. I don't usually buy bundles because I like to pick my own fabrics, but it's a great way to get a group of fabrics that are not the sort of thing you normally buy. It allows you to sample a whole new color scheme, or do something thematic. I picked up a Sweet Treat of animal skin prints in Chicago last year, and my friend G, who also loves Sweet Treats, suggested we make bags from them. For Christmas she gave me a copy of M'Liss Rae Hawley's 101 Fabulous Fat-Quarter Bags.
This terrible photo shows the beginning of one -- the big center panel is the bottom, and when folded the top and bottom pieces become the two sides. I goofed. The two B&W prints should be on opposite sides so that they won't be next to each other in the finished bag. I have a little unstitching to do...

I have a few more MLK Service Day links for you. Seems like many of you spent some time working on donation quilts that day!

Sara made a bright squares quilt to donate, and kept working right through inauguration day!
Susan finished another quilt for Project Linus -- wow!
Mary, who makes makes most of her quilts for charity, worked with us on MLK day and that evening quilted a cute penguin quilt that her mom had made to donate.
Michele worked with leftovers from one quilt to turn them into another donation quilt.
Alycia makes so many wonderful Quilts of Valor that stitching on MLK day was much like any other quilting day!

It's not my place to thank these quilters for what they've done, but I am so glad they participated and I know their efforts are greatly appreciated by many.

Barack-y Road ice cream and donation quilts

Zingerman's has a fabulous inauguration ice cream called Barack-y Road Gelato, which they describe like this:

Barack-y Road is new, our special blend made just for inauguration. Handmade marshmallows, butter-roasted peanuts, dulce de leche caramel and chocolate chips that gelato genius Josh makes himself. That's in addition to the base of fresh milk from Calder Dairy (one of the last farmstead dairies in Michigan), organic Demerara sugar and Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans.

Eat it because it's chilled and he's chill. Eat it because he's facing a rocky road but it will turn out sweet in the end. Eat it for any reason, just be sure to bring all your friends to the table. It serves twelve of them nicely.

Alas, I no longer live in Ann Arbor, so can't get a scoop of this, but I picked up some slow-churned rocky road ice cream and some caramel sauce today and we'll have a dish while we watch the inaugural address for the second time tonight.

It was so exciting to see all the donation quilts that people worked on yesterday! Thanks to everyone who let me know they would be doing this. I'll put up links that people have sent me so far, and I'll keep posting links over the next few days. Please post a photo of a charity project you worked on for the MLK National Day of Service and I'll post a link to your blog.

Roz made some great crazy blocks for a quilt for an agency that helps the homeless.
Susan finished a colorful, cheery Project Linus quilt.
Trisha worked on a bright charity quilt, a fun pattern.
Magpie Sue turned a red and white UFO into a preemie quilt.
Gari worked on a disappearing nine-patch for law enforcement to give to a child who has to be removed from his home.
True Blue Nana worked on a lovely blue and orange star quilt for donation.
Quiltdiva Julie has just finished her So Many Memories Alzheimer's quilt and got it ready to ship off.

If you participated in the Day of Service by quilting for charity, please let me know and I'll post a link. It's such a wonderful feeling to know that our quilts will be big hugs for someone who really needs one.

One blanket for donation done

One fringed fleece blanket for Project Linus done!
These are quick, easy, and oh-so-cuddly. If you want to make one yourself, the pattern is on the Project Linus website (scroll down to Fringed Fleece Blanket).

If you're doing any charity quilting today for the MLK National Day of Service, please put a photo on your blog and let me know. Tonight or tomorrow I'll post links to everyone's projects. Remember, you don't have to make a whole quilt today, but if you have any time to give to making a block, choosing the pattern, cutting the fabric, etc., let me know. I have some links to simple projects in my previous two posts.

Happy quilting!

Getting ready for National Day of Service!

Hi, everyone! So many of you have responded saying that you would like to spend some time on MLK Day doing some quilting for charity. Awesome! Even if you don't have the time that day, I hope you'll think about becoming involved in some charitable quilting of some sort. If you don't have time to make a quilt, you might consider making a block. Clare collects them for Quilts 4 Leukaemia and the Heartstrings Quilt Project does, too. Check their websites for details.

If you do some charity quilting on MLK Day, please post about it on your blog and let me know so I can put a link to it from my blog. It'll be wonderful to see what everyone has done! Michele at With Hearts and Hands has posted a list of people who are doing charitable quilting that day -- check it out! Even if you are not in the US, please consider participating -- there is a need everywhere.

I responded to everyone who left a comment that they wanted to quilt for charity on MLK Day, and I would have liked to post more links and updates on the Day of Service, but I was down this week with some sort of miserable virus. Our furnace broke, too, but my own personal thermostat was so off kilter between fever and chills that I didn't even notice! Fortunately DH did, and he's the one who had to stay up until midnight while the furnace guy fixed things. DH said the repairman just shrugged off being called out so late, saying it came with his career choice. I'm glad he was willing to work nights because we couldn't wait until morning -- the outside temp had dropped to -16F (that's -27C) and we we were afraid the pipes would freeze.

Since I didn't get any quilting done myself -- charity or otherwise -- I thought I'd give you a tour of my guild's Project Linus stash and works in progress.

We have a finished basement that became my sewing area when the girls left for college and I took up quilting. I volunteered to house the fabrics that guild members donated to Project Linus. As you can see, we have a lot! And we use it.

Here are some piles of projects underway -- tops that need batting and backing, tops ready for quilting, quilted tops that need binding, donated quilts that need a little fixing, great fabrics that need a special pattern rather than one of our standards (we call those "Get Creative" quilts). You can see our finished red and turquoise fungly top in the foreground -- still has to be quilted.
This big roll of batting was a donation from a batting company. We are very appreciative because batting is expensive. Unfortunately, the batting is only 36" (a scant meter) wide, and our standard quilts are 40" x 60", which means we have to piece it! Eek! I see a piecing party in our future!
But this is the only piecing I managed to do this week. These were supposed to be put together as leaders and enders while I worked on another project, but I was so frustrated at not being up to any real quilting that I took 5 minutes and strip pieced them. At least I got something done!

Donation Quilts

President-elect Obama has asked Americans to participate in a national day of service on Martin Luther King Day (January 19). He and his family will be doing volunteer work, and I thought it would be great if quilters would participate by working on charity quilts that day. Just do whatever you have time for -- cut some fabric scraps into squares for a charity quilt, piece a strip quilt, tie a top you made for charity but never got around to finishing. Quilters are so generous with their time and talents that I'm sure many of you already have projects underway. It'll be fun to dedicate some time on MLK Day to charity quilting, especially because you'll know that lots of other quilters out there are doing the same.

Need a pattern or some ideas to get you started? Mary at Mary Quilts has many free patterns for simple but beautiful charity quilts, and Bonnie at Quiltville has lots of scrap patterns, many of which make wonderful donation quilts.
Julie of Me & My Quilts gathered fabric for about 15 pillowcases to donate to ConKerr Cancer, which distributes them to children with the disease. Members of my guild stitched them into pillowcases and we're sending them in. This photo shows about half of them. If you don't have much time but want to make something to donate, these pillowcases are easy to make in a short time.
This Heartstrings quilt was made at a local Project Linus worknight and quilted by a member of my guild. They are wonderful group projects! Maybe you can get a few friends together to work on one of these on MLK Day. Directions are on the Heartstrings Quilt Project website.

Post edited to include:
There are also some good quilting patterns on the Project Linus website, and Michele at Quilting Journey has compiled a list of 2,500 free quilting patterns.

I hope you'll think about participating. Let me know if you do! Together, we can make a difference.

Cucire

Jacquie over at Tallgrass Prairie Studio has started Project Improv to encourage quilters to "quilt outside the lines." Her timing was perfect for me -- I'm doing a wonky quilt for our family room wall and could use the support of a group. We can make whatever we want for our own projects, but everyone commits to contributing a 12.5" wonky log cabin block for a charity quilt. I joined the red and aqua group since I love this color combination. Here's the block. I wish it had a little more sparkle in the lower left corner, but I think it will be fine in a quilt with lots of other red and aqua blocks.I have an uneasy peace with my wonky blocks about who is in charge. I (sort of) know what I want, and my fabric (sort of) knows what it wants, and ideally we march shoulder to shoulder into the fray. If either of us is too much in charge, the results are boring or disastrous. It takes some practice to work together.

For a leaders and enders project, I'm using these black and white pieces with their colored strips. They're the first installment of a fabric swap through my guild.
Our swap chair got permission from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville to use her Sticks and Stones pattern (you can download a PDF of the pattern here), and all the swappers are providing cut squares and strips so she can make a quilt for charity. It's a fun pattern and I like having a straightforward project for leaders and enders (a technique I also learned from Bonnie). I'm thinking about something a little funkier for the border, though.

As for the title of this post, cucire is the Italian word for sew. The university here offers intensive language classes between semesters, and DD2 and I signed up. She spent a semester in Italy and has much better Italian than I do. She also has a better sense of direction, which is fortunate considering I had planned to follow the signs to the classroom.
I kid you not, this sign is actually in the hallway by our class!

Happy quilting, everyone! Ciao!

Guts and glory

Like just about everybody else, I've been trying to figure out what my quilting goals are for the new year. Finish my UFO's? Get rid of stash? Take a class? Blog more often? What???

This morning I had an ah-ha! moment, a flash of insight so brilliant that it has to work for me. And here it is: I'm going to work on those projects that will make my gut feel good. I know, I know, it doesn't sound like a plan and it certainly doesn't sound brilliant. But it's just what I need to push myself and to feel good about what I've accomplished. Here's why:

Quilting is my hobby, which means it's something I do for fun. Right? Apparently not, because I sometimes stress about it. So then it's not a stress-reliever, it's a stress producer. I need to get rid of whatever makes me feel bad about my hobby. And what is that? I feel bad that I don't let myself work on projects that are really creative because I don't know whether I can be creative. In the end, that's what I will regret -- not that my sewing room was messy, not that I have several UFO's, not that there are skills I have not mastered, but that I have been afraid to follow my own creative instincts.

So I'm starting small. Quilt Pixie is doing a block a week to improve her piecing skills, and I thought I'd do something similar to give my creativity an opportunity to come out and play. I need new potholders anyway, so I thought I'd try some ideas there. How about a wonky log cabin potholder? I love how a tiny project looks great big on my blog!
My only rule for practicing creativity is that I have to start the creativity-jogging project. Once I'm started, I'm usually okay. (It's that "energy of activation" stuff from chemistry class -- it takes more energy to start than to keep going.) I don't love this potholder top, but I like it fine and I feel great about the process -- I didn't know where I was going with it, but I let it develop as I went.

And on a completely different note, I finished the three borders of an I Spy that started as a way to make use of leaders and enders, a la Bonnie. Still need to quilt it. (And don't you hate how those great big projects look so tiny in a photo? It's the same size as the potholder!)

I wish you all a wonderful 2009 -- I know my year will be better for sharing it with my blogging friends. May we all find the guts to aim for our true goals!