Quilt Binding Tutorial

Welcome! This is the first of my sewing/quilting tutorials and is how to make a continuous binding and attach it to your quilt sandwich. It is machine sewn to the top and hand sewn to the reverse and has mitred corners.

First you need to establish how much binding you need.
Measure your quilt top to bottom and side to side.
Mine is 60" top to bottom, 46" side to side.
So, all round the quilt is 60 + 60 + 46 + 46  = 212"
You need to add 10 - 12" for joining seams and mitring the corners, so you need at least 222"
Fabric is usually 42" wide, so divide 222 by 42 and you get 5.28. You therefore have to cut 6 strips.
Each strip needs to be 2 1/2" wide.
You will have quite a lot left over, but as this is 2 1/2" wide (the width of a jelly roll strip) you can iron the left over piece flat and add it to your jelly roll stash!

Now, you need to join the 6 pieces.
With right sides together, place the end of one piece on top of a second piece and at right angles to it.
Machine stitch a diagonal line across the corner, securing the threads with a few reverse stitches at each end,

Trim the corner leaving a 1/4" seam allowance.

Press the seam allowance open.

Repeat for all the pieces until you have one long strip of binding. Press in half lengthways.

Starting at least 12" from one corner, pin the binding to the front edge of the quilt, along one side only.

Machine stitch, starting not at the beginning, but at least 6" along from the start of the binding strip. Use a walking foot and a 1/4" seam allowance.

Stop sewing 1/4" from the corner of the quilt. There is often a little indentation on the tip of the walking foot to show you where 1/4" is. Work a few reverse stitches to secure and remove the quilt from the machine.

Fold the strip back at right angles to itself. You will have a diagonal fold line from the folded edge of the binding to the corner of the quilt.

Fold the binding strip directly back down, level with the second edge of the quilt, without disturbing the diagonal fold. Pin to secure.

Return your work to the sewing machine, and starting 1/4" from the top, continue attaching the binding along the second edge, pinning as necessary as you go.

Repeat the process for each corner of the quilt.

Stop sewing when you are about 10" from the start point. Secure with a few reverse stitches. Cut the threads and remove from the sewing machine.

Use your iron to press back the start of the binding with a diagonal fold.

Bring the tail end of the binding to meet that fold and crease it so that the two diagonal folds meet and butt against each other. Press in place.

Open the start of the binding out flat and pin  the crease line to the crease line of the tail end (through one layer only so you can still open the tail end out flat)

Open the tail end of the binding out flat and pin the rest of the diagonal line so that you can see where to sew a diagonal seam just as you did when piecing the binding strip..

Sew along this pinned line (make sure you have pulled it well away from the rest of the quilt first!) and trim to leave a 1/4" seam allowance.

Press the seam allowance open.

Fold the now continuous binding strip back in half again.

Pin along the remaining edge of the quilt and sew in place from the point at which you left off to where you first started.

Hand stitch the folded edge of the binding to the back of the quilt. I like to use a thread with matches either the binding or the quilt back and use the machine stitching as a guide line.

When you come to the corners, one piece should fold neatly under the other. Just secure with a few extra stitches, again using the machine stitching as your guide line.

You are done!

Jubilee Weekend Free Pattern Offer

 We have a 4 day weekend here in the UK as it is the Queen's Jubilee and we're celebrating in style with street parties everywhere!! - but if the weather forecast is right we are going to need waterproof wellies, not just knitted ones!
I'm having my own "crafty" celebration by giving a FREE knitting when you make a purchase on lovefibres on Etsy.

To receive your free pattern this is what you need to do:
1. Make a purchase from my etsy shop
2."Like" my Facebook page
3. Publicly follow this blog
4. Leave a comment below telling me your Etsy username and which free pattern you would like. I will then email it to the same address as the original Etsy purchase

Offer ends at midnight GMT 5th June.
Enjoy your weekend!!

THIS OFFER IS NOW CLOSED

Moda Pure Quilt

I thought I would share some pictures of the quilt I finished a couple of weeks ago. Its a queen size quilt and uses a Moda Pure jelly roll which I bought several months (ermmm, nearly a year!!!!) ago at the Festival of Quilts, NEC Birmingham. I didn't know what I was going to make with it at the time, but as it was designed by Sweetwater - my all time favourite designers -  AND had text on it, I had to buy it!

I used a simple nine patch with Kona Snow for the sashing and some dark brown from my stash for the cornerstones and inner border.

I just love straight line quilting at the moment. It gives such a clean and modern look to a quilt, so whilst the nine-patches are ditch quilted, I've used straight lines, just 1" apart for the outer border and white background.

The binding is more of the dark brown stash and I've used a pale coffee coloured small print for the backing.

And do you know the best thing about this quilt?

It's actually for me!! It goes perfectly with my bedroom (so I can forget any ideas about decorating) and I love it to bits!!

Sew Sweet Sewing Pail

I have just finished making this sweet little sewing pail/carry-all for my friend Sara. She saw the one I had made for myself several years ago and instantly knew how useful it would be.

I have adapted a pattern by Mandy Shaw at Dandelion Designs. It has a good sized "pail" for storing your bulky items like rotary cutter, rulers and fat quarters and a total of 9 (yes NINE!! - part of my own adaptation) little pockets for storing scissors, threads, tapes, un-picker, marking pencils - you name it - all those little things it is tiresome to go scrabbling around in the bottom of a bag for! I used brushed cotton for the little front packets as I know that is where I place pins, needles etc and its nice and easy to push them into brushed cotton.

One of the best things about this pail is that it has a carry handle and a popper fastening, so you don't lose everything if you pick it up rather roughly.

Have you noticed the "Sit Long, Talk Much, Laugh Often" ribbon? I think it's from East of India ribbons, but I bought it a few years ago. I can only find a red, bolder version now.

I am a total sucker for anything fabric with words on, so you can expect to see a lot of similar embellishments to my projects in the near future.

 I hope you like it Sara!!

Free Knitting Pattern Baby Hat with Top Knot

Don't you just love free patterns!
Today I am giving you the link to my free baby top-knot knitting pattern.
Update: Pattern now has instructions for both knitting in the round and knitting flat.
It is knit in the round and is very, very simple! I wrote it as a starter pattern for people learning to knit in the round. It uses double knit or light worsted weight yarn and has instructions for 5 sizes ranging from preemie to 2 years.
I know many, many knitters in the UK hate knitting in the round (but they dislike sewing up seams too!!!) whereas my US friends are much more comfortable with it . I have a little theory about this!
If you learned to crochet first and then to knit, you are comfortable knitting in the round - if you didn't learn to crochet, or only learned much later, you are a two needles only sort of person - and as crochet is so much more popular in the US, and only just starting to gain in popularity here, there are more "in the rounders" in the States.
So there you have it - my theory - but let's get back to point of the post!!
The free pattern can be downloaded here. It is also in the Knitting Patterns tab at the top of the page, so you can get those knitting needles out and get knitting today!

Aspirations

As this is a new blog, I was going to write about me today, telling you all the little details that would take up to much room in the bio.......and then, I went on Facebook and found this poem that a friend had posted:


THE INVITATION by Oriah

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing

It doesn’t interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love
... for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or,
have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wilderness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be
careful, realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling is true
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself,
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul

I want to know if you can be faithful, and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty
even when it’s not pretty every day,
and if you can source your life from God’s presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of a lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon, “yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live,
or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here,
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have
studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.


Having read this, the little snippets of info about me seem irrelevant. This poem moved me, and I thought that if I posted it I would be showing you what I aspire to be.... I fail every moment of every day, but it's the trying that counts.
I hope you liked the poem too, and if you share this blog journey with me, you'll get to know the little details about me as we go along......and it will be far more fun that way :)

The photo at the top, by the way, is the clematis montana rubens which is at its most glorious at the moment at the bottom of my garden, scrambling along the fence and right up to the top of my neighbour's 15ft high conifers!!!

A New Venture

I'm about to start on a new exciting venture!
I find that I just can't stop making quilts, and have so many ideas in my head that I've decided to start selling patterns for quilts, as well as the quilts themselves, on Etsy.
I decided it would be a bad idea to put them in the LoveFibres shop, as I really like the unified look that it now has, so I'm starting a new shop - Mack and Mabel
The other thing I'm going to do is combine my lovefibres blog with this one, so you will find both knitting and quilting related items here. I will move my free patterns over and add some quilting tutorials, as well as continuing to show you what I've been making for charity and for family and friends.
I do hope you will follow my new blog, and let me know what you think of it - good and bad!
Let the fun begin!