Flanged Binding

July 25th, 2017
 
I bound my small donation quilt last week, it measures 25 in x 25 inches:
 
 
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I used a binding technique I’ve never tried before.  This is a binding that has a flange that’s actually part of the binding itself.  I followed a tutorial that can be found by clicking here. 
 My highlight fabric, or flange fabric (solid orange) was cut at 1.75 inches wide and my “regular” binding fabric was cut at 1.5 inches wide.  They were sewn together with a 1/4 inch seam:
 
 
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…and once they are pressed with good sides facing outward, you can get a sense of how the binding will actually appear:
 
 
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The binding is then sewn to the wrong side of the quilt:
 
 
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…and then it’s turned around and stitched down to the good side of the quilt.  My only regret is that I was on a hurry, so I left pins in place.  You can see in the photo below that this results in a not so even width of flange:
 
 
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Next time, I will remove all pins before I stitch and I’ll slow down and make a better effort to stitch right at the ditch.  Still, for my first attempt, this was a good experience.
 
 
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Filed under Free Motion Quilting, Trapunto. 1 Comment

Trapuntoed Dresden Plate Wall Hanging

July 15th, 2017
 
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I outlined the steps to creating a trapunto layer in my last post.  That means I began this next phase by quilting curvy swirl chains inside each blade of the Dreden plate as you can see below:
 
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I then quilted a feather inside the center circle and in the photo below you can see that I hyperquilted it:
 
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Here’s what things looked like once the trapuntoed Dresden plate had all its decorative FMQing completed:
 
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It’s actually much easier to see all the quilting from the backside:
 
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I placed it into the final quilt sandwich and then began by outlining all the applique pieces with invisible thread.  You can just barely start to see the texture developing in this next shot:
 
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…and here all the pieces have been outlined with invisible thread and I’ve marked soap lines that will be my guides for stitching a feather frame surrounding the Dresden plate:
 
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This next shot shows the feathers once they’ve been stitched:
 
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And this last shot shows the feathers after hyperquilting:
 
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Wonder how long it will take me to get around to adding that binding…

Filed under Free Motion Quilting, Trapunto. 1 Comment

Making Something out of Leftovers from Other Leftovers

July 4th, 2017
 
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I cut a lot of squares for another chevron quilt last week, then used the small pieces at the end of each strip to cut fans for a Dresden plate quilt.  I was so excited by working with these beautiful Kaffe Fassett fabrics that I cut up far more fans than I needed for the Dresden plate quilt I wanted to make.  The Asheville Quilt Guild always has a small quilt auction to raise money each fall, so I stitched up a 25 in square block to donate.  The shot above shows the beginnings of it.  I’m hand appliquing the Dresden plates for my “real quilt,” and thought I’d machine applique it on my donation quilt.  These are fairly large Dresden plates; I think they measure about 19 inches in diameter.  You can see in the shot below that in my haste, I didn’t make the world’s greatest choice about the color of the thread or the size of blanket stitch:
 
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Oh well, chalk that up to being in too much of a hurry.  In this next shot, you can see that I fused a layer of interfacing to the back side:
 
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This was to stabilize it so the edge stitching wouldn’t cause any puckering.  Next up, I cut away the background fabric that falls inside the applique:
 
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And just for fun, I decided to add a layer of trapunto.  I zig-zagged a couple of batting scraps together for the trapunto layer:
 
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…and then used invisible thread in my top needle to attach the batting to the applique section.  In this last shot you can see the backside after the batting has been cut away:
 
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Now the fun part can begin!  I am hoping to get this quilted within the next week, so stay tuned!

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