Quilt Facing Tutorial

It's time to face the two quilts which are ready to be quilted and finished. This is my variation on a method which is sometimes called the "pillowcase method". I will show the finished quilts in a few days.

Layer the quilt top on top of the batting and do enough quilting to hold the batting in place. For this quilt, I am doing some raw-edge applique at the sames time.

If the finished size is important, mark lines for the finished size on the front of the quilt. Trim a little more than a quarter of an inch away from the edge. I don't use a ruler or a straight edge since I am pretty good at guessing seam allowances, and I prefer the organic edge I get from freehand cutting.

You may want to mark the top of your quilt before this step. Lay the top face down on the backing (right sides together and put a single pin in the center. Beginning in the middle of the sides, scoot the edge of quilt front and batting toward the center an eighth to a quarter inch then pin. Repeat for each side, then do the same for the corners. The idea is that you want the backing to be a bit smaller than the front so the seam on the edge will roll to the back. Test to see if the backing has enough stretch to ease stitch the edge together without creating any creases in the front. take out some fullness if necessary and add more pins if you like.

Stretch the backing as you sew all the way around the edge with a quarter inch seam allowance. Be careful to keep the batting even with the front edge as you sew.

Trim the backing fabric, and cut the corners to remove bulk when the quilt is turned.

Cut a strip of fusible web an about an inch wide and a few inches shorter than the width of the quilt. Fuse it where the sleeve will be sewn on later. Make sure you know which way is up, and fuse it near the top edge. Pull the backing away from the quilt front and cut a slit in in it to make an opening for turning.

 I use a slightly blunt pencil as a turning tool. Place the tip of the pencil right at a point, and pull the backing fabric over the tip of the pencil. Repeat for each point. Then turn the whole quilt right side out. The pencil trick usually does a good job, but use a blunt needle to finish pulling out any points which don't look sharp enough.

Roll the seams to the inside while you press the edges. If you don't have paper on your fusible web, then avoid ironing over it until you have ironed the edge completely.

Everything should be looking pretty flat at this point. Remove the paper from the fusible web. Press the fabric above the slit to fuse it to the batting. Smooth out any wrinkles in the back and press the rest of the slit. If the edges of the slit don't line up perfect, it's not a problem since your hanging sleeve will be sewn over the top when you've finished quilting.

Getting Ready for the Show in May

Two and a half weeks to the big show? It’s sneeking up on me quick. I have started gathering all my quilts in one place. I found these five that still need sleeves. Two need labels also. I will also need to decide which quilts I will hang in the space given to me, and which I will show during my short lecture. I will be talking about my first quilt, and my progression from traditional to art quilts. Detailed information about the show is on the Piecemakers website.

Sleeves are made for these quilts now, but not sewn on yet. I plan to take them to a Ladies Fellowship Craft Day at my church, and get all of my hand sewing done.

And so I though I would show you how I make sleeves and the easy way I have learned to put a bit of ease into them to leave room for the thickness of a hanging rod. I learned Robbi Joy Eklow’s technique for fully lined sleeves with ease for a hanging rod in a workshop a few years ago. Her technique is easy and the results are great, but I don’t like the extra layers of fabric behind a small quilt.

I started with a strip of fabric about the width of my quilt and six inches wide. Some shows require a wider sleeve, but a narrower one seems works just fine for me. And I prefer not to cover up a lot of the back of the quilt.

Hem the ends with a narrow hem. I like to stitch with a very narrow short zigzag which holds the edge of the hem down well so it doesn’t get caught on the hanging rod.

The trick that puts ease into the sleeve begins at the ironing board. Mark the center length of the sleeve by folding it in half lengthwise and pressing with a hot iron. Open back up, and fold the long edges of the sleeve to the center line, and press well.

Sew the long edges together (wrong sides together) with about a half inch seam (or 1cm, if you have a European machine marked in metric like I have). This will make the back of the sleeve narrower than the front.

Press the seam open. Make sure not to un-press the creases at the side of the quilt. You might repress the creases to make sure they are nice and crisp.

Center the sleeve on the back of the quilt about a half inch from the top and pin. Hand stitch the sleeve to the quilt using the creases as your stitching guide.

Week 2 Continues & Painting Embroidery Floss

My landscape is halfway stitched. Some of my fabrics are a bit tightly woven, making it hard to needle through especially where they are doubled.

I didn't find a shade of floss I was looking for at home (maybe I'm just to picky, but I made up my mind what I wanted). I like variegated floss, but hate how most commercial variegated threads go from bright saturated colors to almost white.

My solution was to paint some of my lighter colored floss with Setacolor paints diluted a bit with water Wind in a loose skein, dab the color on (a bit darker at one end of the skein), blow dry, heat set with the iron. Now I have "hand dyed" floss which was ready to use in about 20 minutes. I suppose you might call me color obsessed.

Tutorial for Binding with an Accent Strip

I did a quilt for the Fast Friday challenge back in June. The challenge was to use one thing on your quilt that is NOT from a fabric store, with a spending limit of five dollars. I bought a couple dollars of fiberglass screening from the hardware store, and used it to represent cross-hatching. Here is the original challenge posting.

When I finished my challenge, I was still deciding how to finish the edges, and had decided it needed a bit more quilting. I added some quilting the background, and decided I would finish the edges with an accent strip between the binding and the quilt to define the edge better. After a couple of practice attempts at binding with an accent strip, I figured out how to finish the edge to get the look I wanted.

I cut binding strips two inches wide and contrasting strips ¾ inch wide, and ironed both in half lengthwise.

Thread the machine with a color which matches the contrasting strip. Load the bobbin with a color that contrasts with the backing fabric (I used white to blend with the binding).

Line up the raw edges of the contrasting strip with one of the quilt edges, and sew with a scant quarter inch seam. Repeat on the opposite side. Trim the ends flush with the edge of the quilt. Do the same thing on the remaining sides, letting the ends overlap the first two strips.

Line up the raw edges of the binding strip with one of the quilt edges, on top of the contrasting strip, and pin in place. Sew from the back using the stitching from the last step as a guide. Stay just on top or a thread or two closer to the center of the quilt. Trim the ends flush with the edge of the quilt. Fold to the back and blind stitch to the backing. Repeat on the opposite side.

Sew the last two binding strips on in the same manner but leave about ¾ inch hanging over the ends. Trim the raw edges that extend past the edges of the quilt at an angle to make less bulk when you turn them to the back. Blind stitch.

Coffee Cup Sketch (14 x 9½)

Framing a Small Textile Piece

I have a small quilt that I plan to enter in a juried show for small quilts. I thought a frame would make it look less trivial, and more significant as a piece of art. I liked what Pat Dolan did a few months ago http://patsartjournal.blogspot.com/2007/01/framing-fiber-art.html with similar sized pieces and decided I would do something similar. I wasn’t able to find a Pre-assembled square frame in the size I needed, so I decided to build my own.

Two sets of pre-cut 11 inch wood frame sections were easy to assemble with a bit of wood glue and plastic pegs that push in to hold the corners together. The plastic pegs don’t make quite as tight a joint as I would like, so I was glad the salesman at the art supply store suggested I color the cut ends with a black marker before assembling it.

The artwork was centered on a piece of acid free foamcore, and lines were lightly drawn onto the foamcore about a quarter of an inch in from the edge under the fabric. Two small holes were made in the foam corner at each corner.
Using multiple strands of thread, the quilt was sewn at each corner through the holes, catching just the back of the quilt and a bit of batting, but not going through to the front of the quilt.

Plexiglas was cut to fit the frame. Standard frame quality Plexiglas was recommended over non-glare, because non-glare is not completely clear, and becomes more evident if the artwork is set back from the face of the plastic.

Plastic spacer was cut to fit around the perimeter of the Plexiglas. What was available was an eighth of an inch wide and a quarter inch in depth. It can be scored with a utility knife and snapped to the correct length. It comes with adhesive on the back which is used to fix it onto the back of the glass.

One more piece of foamcore was cut for a back board, and glazier points were used to hold everything in the frame.

Scotch Tape Roller meant for mounting photos does not work well on the back of picture frames. It seems to need a smoother surface to dispense well. Aleene’s scrappbooking glue worked great to attach the paper dust cover to the back.