How to join your binding ends on a quilt top

Wow I've finished my quilting on my small chevron quilt and now I'm ready to put on the binding. It feels good to be getting a project done even if it is small. I used some of the purple with white dot material that I had already cut into bias binding, so far this binding will have completed 3 projects and there's still quite a bit more left. While I was putting on the binding I was thinking I wanted the join to also be at an angle like all of my other binding seams. This has never really bothered me, but I was thinking it would be nice to hide the join. After all, how hard could it be?

First off if you have never sewn on your binding before you want to make sure you have some extra length and you will start off somewhere usually in the middle of a side and leave a tail of binding say about 10-15" (this really doesn't have to be exact . Sew all the way around again leaving a tail about 10-15", your tails should be something like this below. Basically you just need enough extra on both ends to overlap each other about 3-5" (more is always good)

As you can see I have plenty of overlap this is better than not enough, the more quilts you do the better you'll be able to judge this. Next I will be laying my binding tails even my quilt edge and on top of one another. In the picture below I staggered them slightly to show you where they overlap.

 We are going to trim this to a ¼". Below I've lined up my fabric and placed my ruler ¼" to the right of where the two fabrics meet (as I've shown above). I mark this with my pencil. As you can see I used the 45° angle on my ruler to make sure my line would also be 45°.

Next you'll open up your binding you just marked with your pencil and continue marking your line.

Next I place my ruler on the pencil line, again using the 45° line to make sure my cut is perfect and cut.

Now I lay my bindings even again with the edge of my quilt and make sure they have a ¼" overlap.

Next we can sew them together. I open up both ends and put them right sides together(as shown below), leaving a ¼" triangle overhang on both sides. Then sew a ¼" seam.

Now you can line up your binding with your quilt edge once again and finish sewing it down. Now all your seams are going at a 45° angle and no one will know where you binding started and stopped.

How do you finish your quilts?

Thanks for reading♥ Olivia

Quilting Update!

I wasn't sure how to title this post I want to do a monthly or weekly update of what I'm working on to just sort of say "here's what I'm working on...". I have so many projects in the works but by know means am I able to have finished projects to blog about all the time. I work a regular 40 hour a week job and have to make time for sewing and quilting, sometimes it's just overwhelming. I have so many ideas to share and projects to do and such little time to do them that it almost gets depressing like "I'll never finish this", "or get to that". Anyway enough of my ranting.

So here's what I'm working on...

These are those chevrons I was blogging about a while back. This is how I ended up arranging them, staggered instead of rows. I'm still quilting this, about half way through now. I like that I'm in no hurry to finish this although I had planned on finishing it around the first of the year so I'm a little behind. The end result is suppose to be a yoga mat(yes that means I've been procrastinating exercise till it's done). kinda been a lazy Sunday for me I'm still hand stitching the binding on my other quilt(which is still a surprise so I'm waiting to share) I've been doing that mostly in my evening time in front of the telly. I have several other projects in various states of unfinished-ness three more that are actually pinned and ready to be quilted and two finished tops. I plan to make several more sewing bags for friends and family(as time allows or as birthdays pop up) I really could go on with my laundry list of ideas but I don't want to bore you too much, let's just say I keep a list(on paper) of all my to do's and ideas.

How do you make time for quilting? Do you have a stack of unfinished projects needing your attention?

Thanks for reading♥

How to make mitered corners for a quilt border.

I've been working on a really big project and I wanted to try mitered corners again, I've done them once before but for some reason haven't since. I thought I would share with you how I miter my corners in the borders of my quilt.

First off you will determine the width you want your border(s) to be I did 2 borders one 3" and the other 6" this makes my finished borders 9". Next you'll need to figure out how long you need to cut these borders. My quilt before the borders is 72" you will add 2x the width of your borders plus 2. so I will add 72 + 9 + 9 +2 = 92. This formula does not allow for error so if you are concerned about that you may want to buffer it a little with a few extra inches.

Next sew your border fabrics together...

here's my borders sewn together.

Next you'll want to fold your border strip in half width wise to get the center. Below you can see I ironed this spot to mark it, but you could mark with a pencil.

Then I lay that fold(or mark) on the center line of my quilt. Since my project is 6 blocks by 6 blocks I simply match my mark to the seam where block 3 and 4 join.

 Now I pin from that center mark outward.

You will now sew on one side of your borders. Make sure that when you are sewing on the borders that you leave a generous ¼" at the beginning and end where it attaches to the quilt Note your border strips will hang over the edges of your quilt. Mine hangs over about 10" that's part of the extra 9 + 9 + 2 that we added.

Remember your overhang will be different depending on the width of your borders.

Below is a quick photo of the ¼" space I left before starting my sewing remember to leave this at the beginning and end. Do this for all sides of your quilt.

Now when you have finished sewing on all your borders find a corner and line up your borders by taking 2 sides and placing them right sides together lining up your border fabrics. See below.

You will have to fold the main body of the quilt at a 45° angle. You can also see this with the ruler I used the diagonal line in this square ruler to help me mark the 45° angle in the border section. You will then sew along your marked line.

 Cut ¼" away from your sewing line and open up your corner, it should look something like this.

Voila a mitered corner.

Thanks for reading♥

Another sewing bag...

I plan on putting several of these together for friends and family and I already made the first test bag for myself you can see it here. I really just wanted to share again, this one went to my 2nd mom Vickie for her birthday. This went together really well the second time, much easier now that I understand the instructions.

Thanks for reading♥

¼" Sewing guide

I have to admit I saw this somewhere online and I think  it's a great tip/idea. Put a rubber band around the arm of your machine at the ¼" mark and it will stay in place and help give you more accurate seams. What a genius idea.

Thanks for reading♥

Make your own place Markers

Sorry for the absence I've been sew busy quilting a project for an upcoming birthday and until it's done I'm on crunch time. I would safely say that I am ¾ of the way through the quilting process. I'm very excited to share this project but will have to wait until it has been received by the recipient before sharing.

I did however have to mark my rows so I sewed them together in the right order, I had directional fabrics I was contending with. I think that there has been many times where I needed to mark a row or a block and I used post it notes and they never stuck to my fabric or even if you pin them on they just get ruined and your always throwing them away. So I decided to make my own sturdy marking cards.

I found a font I liked and typed out my numbers with lots of spacing and then ran some pretty colored card-stock through my printer.

I used a decorative paper punch to punch out my numbers.

As you can see my spacing wasn't so perfect for my first two rows but I decided not to waste materials and kept it as is.

Next I ran my punched numbers through my laminator. Best investment ever.

Then I cut out my numbers and punched some little slot holes for my pin to go through.

Thanks for reading♥