Getting down the finish here on "Sunshine" my Yellow Brick Road quilt! I had cut this quilt out, and sewn the top together quite a long time ago, and then it sat there because I didn't know how to quilt it. So when I dug it out to practice my free motion on I found a bunch of strips that I assumed I had cut for the binding.
When I took a closer look at them they were all 3" by 18" !! What was I thinking?? I have no idea! I must have had a reason to cut them like that, wouldn't you think? Anyway, looking at them I thought that there would be enough to do the binding. But you never know......my math skills are right up there with coloring inside the lines!
I can do multivariate analysis of variance (statistics) but often make simple mistakes measuring quilt strips!
Also, usually I do my bindings with 2 1/4 " strips, not 3". Why you might ask? Well, I don't really know. I think I read it somewhere, and tried it the first time I did a binding, and it worked for me. So I decided to stay with something that worked. But....the idea of cutting a little strip off all those binding pieces was not appealing...(have I mentioned that I am really quite lazy??) So I decided to leave them as 3" and just make a wider binding. Sounds easy doesn't it??
So I sewed all those little strips together. One thing I really LOVE about this sewing machine is the feature that closes up the plate into a little tiny hole. Small enough that your fabric doesn't get sucked down there and chewed up as you are starting off.
It is great! And what is even greater, is that if you switch to zigzag, for example, which would break the needle into little pieces with that tiny hole......the machine automatically opens the slot back up again! AMAZING!!!
Anyway, back to the binding. ...because I wanted it wider, I left a 1/4 inch gap between the edge of the binding and the edge of the quilt..so it was actually a 1/2 inch seam...
I wasn't quite sure how the corners would turn out,because I was kind of making this up as I went along, but no problem, they look great! And I like the look of the wider binding, especially with the stripes...
I decided to hand stitch this one! It really does look better BUT....this quilt is 90 x90...(again....What was I thinking??????) That means that there are 360 inches of binding to stitch down!! I am not very fast, so was thinking that I could do 1" in a minute. (allowing some time to re-thread needle, untangle the thread....cut the thread that I cant untangle because it is now a knot....pull back the thread to tie it off.....re-thread needle .....and repeat.) That would take me 360 minutes, or 6 hours!!! Yikes! I had better get busy!
When I took a closer look at them they were all 3" by 18" !! What was I thinking?? I have no idea! I must have had a reason to cut them like that, wouldn't you think? Anyway, looking at them I thought that there would be enough to do the binding. But you never know......my math skills are right up there with coloring inside the lines!
I can do multivariate analysis of variance (statistics) but often make simple mistakes measuring quilt strips!
Also, usually I do my bindings with 2 1/4 " strips, not 3". Why you might ask? Well, I don't really know. I think I read it somewhere, and tried it the first time I did a binding, and it worked for me. So I decided to stay with something that worked. But....the idea of cutting a little strip off all those binding pieces was not appealing...(have I mentioned that I am really quite lazy??) So I decided to leave them as 3" and just make a wider binding. Sounds easy doesn't it??
So I sewed all those little strips together. One thing I really LOVE about this sewing machine is the feature that closes up the plate into a little tiny hole. Small enough that your fabric doesn't get sucked down there and chewed up as you are starting off.
It is great! And what is even greater, is that if you switch to zigzag, for example, which would break the needle into little pieces with that tiny hole......the machine automatically opens the slot back up again! AMAZING!!!
Anyway, back to the binding. ...because I wanted it wider, I left a 1/4 inch gap between the edge of the binding and the edge of the quilt..so it was actually a 1/2 inch seam...
I wasn't quite sure how the corners would turn out,because I was kind of making this up as I went along, but no problem, they look great! And I like the look of the wider binding, especially with the stripes...
Good for you in using what you had - lessoned learned. I like 2 1/4" binding for thin batts and a 2 1/2" for loftier. But with that stripe fabric it does add to the design element of the quilt.
ReplyDeleteI am doing bindings, too. 2 quilts that probably total inches you have. I will take my time hand stitching and do some other fun things inbetween threads so I don't get bored.
Why so many knot probems? One run over thread conditioner should help, but not more. Gooduck!
ReplyDelete:-)
Time to pop in a movie!
ReplyDeleteLaDonna
This is one of those posts that for me...could have been in a foreign language. I did however come away feeling pretty smug...I can color within the lines:)
ReplyDelete