From the archive - April 2009 - narrow quilt binding

First in this short series of "cheat" posts to minimise my screen time over the holiday weekend is a quilty post - a binding for small quilts that I used a lot to make "Little Gems" and in the years since then for journal quilts.

If the photos don't appear, you can see them at https://margaret-cooter.blogspot.com/2009/04/very-narrow-binding-with-no-hand-sewing.html

A very narrow binding - with no hand sewing

I stumbled on this quick binding technique while seeking to "rein in" an edge that was obviously longer than it should be. Thinking of some way to gently gather in that bit of extra, and not wanting to use up any good perle thread or cord, I remembered all those selvedges torn off fabric that were rolled up, waiting for a purpose in life (maybe something like this?) - but what better use than to stabilise and firm up the edges of some Little Gems? (You might recognise this as one from my leaf panel here.)

First step is to cut or tear the selvedge to a 1/4" strip. (Or you could use 1/4" ribbon.)

The quiltlet is already trimmed to size. As this will be an A4-sized quilt, an A4 piece of paper is handy for getting the exactsize of the strips. Cut a separate one for each side.

Sew 1/8" from the edge, ie, down the middle of the strip. After you've done the first few stitches to hold the strip in place, position the other end and hold it there firmly - maybe even use a pin? - and make sure any fullness in the quilt gets taken up as you sew to the end of the strip.

At the end, lift the presser foot to insert the next strip (no need to cut the thread). Fold the strip you've just sewn (on the left in this dark, fuzzy photo) before you put the next strip on top.

Repeat these steps all round the quiltlet.

Next step is to zigzag round all the edges. The default zigzag setting is perfect for this width - no fiddling around with pushing those little buttons a zillion times, hurrah. Also I used an open zigzag, but if you want satin stitch, go for it!

I found that sometimes the edge of the selvedge would rise nicely into the middle of the presser foot, but this elegant manoeuvre isn't essential to the success of the technique -

If you've torn the strip, you'll find some fuzzy bits round the edges - simply trim those carefully.

And the results, with the open zigzag (and imperfect tension, and a black bobbin thread, yes I know - the Quilt Police would call this sloppy, but us artists simply say "it adds interest") -
The edge is nice and firm - and the perfectionists will want to satin stitch over it, or make a nice binding in a toning fabric. But I'd rather leave it at that and get on with making another Little Gem - so many ideas, so little time...

Little Gems tombola - the final chapter

It's taking me a while to recover from the excitement of the Festival of Quilts, and especially from the amazing outcome of the Little Gems tombola. Yes, it was lots of work -- but well worth it, and so much fun too.

First of all, here's the stalwart team: Judy Fairless, me, Linda Bilsborrow, Hilary Gooding -- ready for action - but without our tiaras, yet. Before "start of business" on Thursday, 1600 or so Little Gems were on hand - and during FOQ, many more were brought in - quilters are generous people!Linda and I attended Chunghie Lee's workshop on Thursday (more of which later), and nipped out at lunchtime to see how things were going at the stand. We were thrilled to see the long queue for tickets -
and to see the delighted winners -
Of course not everyone won four LGs at once, and some people kept coming back again and again, determined to get lucky. In case you're wondering how a tombola works, numbered tickets go into a drum - £1 buys a ticket, and those ending in 0 or 5 are winners - so usually £5 will produce a lucky ticket. But not always.... We had three boxes in which the quilts were in random order - winners got to choose which box their prize came from.

At the end of the day, or rather at 2pm on Sunday, when we ran out of quilts in the boxes and people could choose from those on the wall, the takings amounted to over £9,500, to benefit the Quilt Museum in York. Thanks to everyone who contributed either by making quilts or by buying tickets - quilters ARE generous people!

If you've won a quilt, check via the Makers list on the website and leave a comment, please. Four people have contacted me, and I'm thrilled to know where my Little Gems have found homes.

Tulip Little Gems

These come from a remnant of curtain fabric, and are simply free-machined around the areas of colour (each one with a different colour of thread). It was going to take too long to completely and closely quilt the background, so I didn't! The edges are finished by facing each one with a strip and hemming it round the back.

The Little Gems website now has over 600 contributions! That's a lot of eye candy....

Sewing at the weekend

Having noticed that the sellotape used on gold wrapping paper picked up the gold colour, I decided to use this in a plastic quiltlet. The bits of gold tape are covered with a sheer layer of fabric, and the wadding is bubble wrap. The back is plastic, and it machined just fine. The stars are added by hand. Whoever wins this "little gem" is in for a surprise!Because the back is plastic, I added the label into the binding - and will be using this method in future!

The BQL challenge this month is trapunto - I was aiming for feathers but got these strange leaves instead -And the spirals, though nice and puffy, are a teeny bit boring ... and odd ...
Some hand embroidery might improve this one?

Shop till you drop

A new series of Little Gem Quilts, using plastic bags. In the first one, I covered the bits of plastic with net and stitched around them. Didn't want to pin into the plastic and leave holes, so the net was useful for helping hold everything in place. At first I merely stitched the handles (see middle of top row) but it looked a bit bare - the 3D handles make a big difference. And yes, that's a John Lewis bag round the edge. 

After that I got bolder and stitched through the plastic. The background was quilted afterwards (in wavy lines). Another possibility is to  quilt the backing-wadding-top sandwich first, then add the bags, and also applique the handles.

Some more Little Gems

These now have their labels sewn on and have been posted on the Little Gems website.
"Time and Tide" has a sheer layer olding down the fabric underneath, and is quilted in (my favourite!) parallel lines - "Square peg round hole" is a way of putting to good use the bondawebbed bits of fabric that you cut circles out of. I like the way those square bits can be stretched to reveal the cut where the scissors have entered -

"Measure for measure" uses teeny scraps of silks, originally intended for postcards. I just couldn't throw those lovely colours away...nor could I resist buying a fat quarter of the tape-measure fabric. The only quilting - maybe it's too little? is around the central panel. But that panel does have a lot of stitching on it -

Handbag quiltlet

This is April's quiltlet for the BQL challenge. The idea of handbags didn't excite me much, but once I got going it was fun. I didn't have the "proper" patterns to hand, so cut a shape out of silk or velvet, put it in the centre of the backing square (straight onto the wadding), foundation pieced first the sides and then strips on the top and bottom, and joined the squares.

Look at how much difference the quilting makes:

A few trimmings, and it's done -

Next time -plastic bags on a velvety background, perhaps?

Another "sweet" Little Gem Quilt

This will be two Little Gems -- starting with a patchwork of sweet (candy) wrappers, under a sheer layer. It's tacked down with colourful threads, ready for machine quilting.

Some of the foil was torn and you could see the batting, so I added a few stitches to cover up the gaps -

And liked doing that kind of handstitching (the batting is a wool blanket, and wool is great for handstitch) - so now all the edges are getting that treatment -

It seems to cry out for beading, now, rather than machine stitching. Or, one with machining, one with beads. We'll see.

Tumbling blocks

This Little Gem starts with some scrappy fabrics (prints) - and a larger piece of solid background. First make the "sandwich" of top fabric, batting (I used a piece of old woolen blanket), and backing. Make it a bit larger than the finished size - mine usually start out about 13" x 10".

Then cut 3" squares from your fabrics, and play around with them till the arrangement pleases you.

Put the squares to one side (pin them where they overlap).

The next step is to quilt the sandwich. I used wavy lines from top to bottom, but any free motion pattern will be fine. A variegated thread that tones in with your background is nice, or else a shiny rayon - or whatever you have on hand.

Pin the squares on the quilted background, and then sew them down with a straight stitch round the edges.

The back looks like this - I lifted some of the overlapping squares to be able to sew right the way round.

Once the squares are securely in place, go round the edges with a zigzag stitch - either open or a satin stitch, like here. Leave long thread ends so it's easy to bury them.

If you're doing this part by hand, use any decorative stitch - blanket stitch, feather stitch, or herringbone cover well.

Here's the back at this point. Use an A4-sized piece of paper as a template for cutting the Little Gem to size. (I usually stitch round the outside of the paper first, and remove the paper and stitch again just inside those lines, then trim along the first (outside) set of stitched lines. But you can simply cut round the paper, and then add the binding.)

Finish the edges with a satin stitch or a narrow binding. This one is closely satin stitched in a variegated blue.

Add a label - and it's done!

Satin stitch edging

This edging came from Terry Grant's blog - I've used it a lot.

As you go round the trimmed edge with an open zigzag stitch, sew down a cord - one on each side. Try not to catch the cord in the stitching. The idea is that you can pull gently on the cord to tighten the edge slightly, to minimise buckling.
Here are the ends of the cord, ready to be pulled a bit tighter to firm up the edge of the quilt.

Note the little threads sticking out - these need to be trimmed back before stitching. Trim the cords just before you get to them with the stitching.

And I usually go round the edge of the batting with a felt pen of a suitable colour, matching the fabric or the thread.
The settings for your stitch may vary with the thickness of thread you use - it should completely cover the edge. (The corners can be a bit tricky.)

Cutting to size

It's probably not immediately clear what's happening here. The idea to do this just popped into my head, probably because the mat was lying next to the machine - The small cutting mat is holding the A4-sized piece of paper in place while I machine round it to mark out the size of the finished Little Gem on the quilted fabric underneath.

This does away with pinning, and with the paper slipping, and the line being wobbly. The pressure over a large area holds the paper template steady. (The machine has an extension table so the entire quiltlet is nice and flat.)

After doing the two visible edges, you then shift the mat to show the other two edges, and keep on sewing round.

Once the size of the quilt is known, I do another row of stitching just inside, and then trim on the first stitching line. My two favourite finishes are a narrow binding with self-mitring corners (as memorably demonstrated by Maxine at a Region 1 regional day last year) and a satin stitch finish with a cord enclosed in the satin stitch - that cord makes all the difference in getting a non-wavy edge.

"Sweetie" quiltlets

After reading a post on BQL about using sweet wrappers in a "sandwich" for practising machine quilting, I had to try it out immediately. A good collection of sweet wrappers had built up over the years - This is how they looked when laid out on a bit of backing, and some wadding (I used a piece of the wool blanket found in the charity shop recently), and topped with sheer fabric. Each piece of foil or cellophane was help in place by one pin -

The pins came out as soon as possible. Machine quilting was in big circles/loops, diagonally across the fabric -

I imagined doing big loops of one colour after another, layers overlapping layers, but it didn't work out that way. Working amid all that colour and sparkle was addictive - it kept telling me to do just a little more -Mostly it ended up as loops within loops, filled in with back-and-forth stitching, or with loops; and lots of circles; and straight lines, or else slightly wavy lines in some areas.

Result: three Little Gems, each satin-stitched round the edge in a different colour -

and the pleasure of a day spent colourfully at the sewing machine, with the radio on.

Seasonal?

A bit of wrapping paper, from round the book of essays sent by Rita - couldn't bear to throw it out so I made it into a Little Gem. Paper is another kind of fibre, right? First step was to fuse it to fabric, then cover it with black net, put some heavy canvas on the back ... and add some subtle stitching before satin stitching round the edges -
Here's evidence of the stitching - picking out a few edges with yellow and grey - it all looks rather cryptic on the back -

Another seasonal theme - easter eggs, on some shiny turquoise that doesn't photography well. After fusing the shapes on, I cut more eggs from paper to stitch round them -

so they look rather ghostly -which pop out once the background is heavily stitched -

Making many from one

Sometimes it's really soothing just to follow the lines. So I decided to quilt the leaves in this bit of curtain fabric - and to make it into a number of A4-sized quilts - 9 or so - in the fullness of time, more Little Gems.

It's a chance for some practice in machine quilting (who among us can do without practice in machine quilting?), and a chance to listen to the radio for hours -- I find that I have to go quite slowly, so can hear the radio over the noise of the sewing machine.
A pleasurable day later, it looks like this:

But the back is better - something has appeared out of nothing!

Many leaves don't have borders, because that will be part of the next stage -- the plan is to make all of these quiltlets different. But how? My first thought was to quilt the white areas in different colours and patterns - or perhaps to paint the white areas - I'm on the lookout for ideas and would welcome suggestions....

"Release"

One for the Little Gems tombola, in more ways than one! The rectangles represent my hope to make - hmm, how many? 29?? - A4-sized quiltlets. That fabric is tiny samples of silk from a shade card, fused to the background. At the bottom is some fabric I brought back from the quilt shop in Ballarat, Australia.

But more interesting is this fortuitous arrangement of what was left after all the bits were fused to the background...
Will it become "Release II"?