Pretty In Pink Quilt Along – Part 5

Today will be the last post on the Pretty In Pink quilt along.

My quilt is finished and there are just one or two things left that I can talk about.  I am just going to go over a couple of things about the binding.

 

First of all, the seam allowance when it comes to binding.  There are a few people out there that do a 1/4″ seam allowance for everything related to quilting.  When it comes to binding, this is one of the times when you get to break that rule.  Your seam allowance actually depends on a few things – what width you cut the binding and things like the thickness of your batting.

I cut my binding for this quilt 2 1/4″.  Your seam allowance for attaching the binding to the quilt will be roughly 1/6th of the cut size (because the binding is folded in half, then it’s folded three times).  One sixth of 2 1/4″ = 3/8th of an inch, so that is my starting point for the width of my seam allowance.  This does not account for the thickness of the batting, etc. so it’s best to sew a little bit and then test it.

To test it, I fold the binding to the back side and make sure that the folded edge just meets the sewing line on the back side.  If it folds way past, then I make the seam allowance a bit wider.  If it doesn’t quite meet the seam line, then I make the seam allowance a little narrower.  My pet peeve is an empty binding – which is what happens when you take too small of a seam allowance.  I like full bindings – in fact,  I sometimes call them voluptuous binding to really get my point across.

 

I will also show how to miter the corners, though I’m sure many of you know how to do that.  The first trick is knowing where to stop by the corner – and you guessed it – It may not be 1/4″.  It’s actually the width of your seam allowance.  So If you seam allowance was 3/8″, then you need to stop 3/8 of an inch from the corner and back stitch.

 

Take the quilt away from the machine and turn it so that the next side to be bound is ready to go.

 

Fold the binding tail straight up.  Pull it all the way up until your back stitching stops you.

 

Now fold it down, so that the fold is even with the top edge of the quilt, and continue sewing.  Repeat on the remaining 3 corners.

 

Lastly, let’s talk about what to do when you get all the way around the quilt and what to do with those tails.

 

There are lots of methods for what to do – but I like a no math, no cutting angles, no lump method.

 

First of all, leave an 8-10″ tail when you start and at the end.  Cut off a scrap piece of binding and lay it next to the beginning binding tail like this –

 

Now overlap the other tail and cut it, using your scrap of binding as a “pattern” as shown below.  So – the overlap is always equal to the width of your binding (in this case, 2 1/4″).  I just use a scrap of the binding so I don’t have to go get a ruler and measure it.    It’s that easy – no measuring, no math, cutting at angles, or adding seam allowances.  Just cut the overlap of the tails to the width you cut the binding.

 

Now lay the two tails right sides together as shown (just like how you sew your binding strips together at an angle – I should have taken a picture of this, but I assume that you all know that you sew the binding strips together on the diagonal to reduce bulk).  The pin shows where I will be sewing them together.

 

Now sew the seam

 

And cut off the corner, leaving a 1/4″ seam allowance (again – the same as how you sewing binding strips together and trim them)

 

Now, just tuck the binding back in half and it should fit the quilt perfectly!

 

Finish sewing the seam.   You will now have a continuous binding and you won’t be able to tell where the last seam was.

 

For help with the hand stitching, I have a tutorial already posted here.  If you don’t already use the method and tools that I recommend, it should save you a lot of time!

I will do a few more quilt alongs throughout the year – Do you have any requests of things that you want to learn more about?  Or can you tell me which tip you found the most helpful?  Your feedback will help me know what to focus on!  Thanks for the feedback and thanks to those of you who joined along.

Pretty in Pink Quilt Along Part 4

Today I am going to share more tips on how I machine applique.  If you missed my last post on preparing the applique shapes and setting up your machine, click here.  For those of you who have missed a few blog posts, we are talking about how to do the applique on the following quilt – Pretty in Pink Mini.

 

Before I go much further, I wanted to mention a hand-out that I use at my classes.  Rather than trying to remember all this info, you can just follow along with this handy little handout.  (To print a PDF copy, click here).  It also shares a little more info than what I can actually cover in these blog posts, as they become so long!

 

Let’s start by stitching down the ric rac.  I used matching color thread and just stitched right down the middle.  See how the open toe foot works so well for seeing exactly where the middle of the ric rac is?

When you get to the end, just tuck it under and stitch across the bottom so the edges won’t fray.

 

Before we start the applique on your project, it is best to test out some sizes for the stitches you are going to do.  The handout has some sizes listed, but play around and find out what size you like.  Write the numbers down on your handout or somewhere you won’t loose them (for example, a 3-16th” wide blanket stitch = a stitch width of 4 on my machine, etc)

 

Next, lets talk about proper alignment of stitches.  The photo below (from the handout) shows how you need to keep the stitching almost entirely on the applique shape and just going over the edge into the ditch where the applique shape and your background fabric meet.

 

You also don’t want to see any background (in this case, the green fabric) showing between the stitching and the applique shape – see the bottom of the photo below.  You want your stitching to be nice and tight to the applique shape as shown near the top of the photo.

 

For gentle curves, like my monster eyeball below, you need work your way evenly around the shape as shown.  You should be able to do a gentle curve like this without pivoting.  You don’t want to do 5 stitches, then sharply pivot, then do 5 more stitches and pivot again as you won’t get a nice, equally spaced set of stitches as shown below.

 

But, if you do need to pivot, make sure that your needle is in the outside position (the right side of your foot.)  If you pivot when your needle is on the left side, you will get little Vs in your stitching like in the photo below (see the pink fabric).

 

If you pivot with your needle on the left side when you are using the zig zag stitch, you will get a goofy gap in the stitching, as shown in the circle below.

 

I know a lot of people just wing when it comes to stitching around the points, but I have some guidelines for doing the outside and inside points.  Our project today only has a couple outside points – like on the leaves – but I will cover them all anyways.

To maneuver the outside point on the leaves, see the illustrations below (again from the handout).  It’s a very easy point to maneuver.

 

 

If you decide to blanket stitch the leaf instead of doing a zig zag, it should look something like this:

 

Inside points are handled a little differently.  Please see the two photos below for how to do the inside points with both the zig zag stitch and the blanket stitch.

 

 

One last thing from the handout – when you are starting and stopping, there are several ways to handle the thread tails.  When I am doing the zig zag, I just stitch in place a few times at the beginning and end.  Some machines have a tacking stitch, so now would be the time to use that.

With the blanket stitch, you are using a thicker thread, so that tacking stitch becomes too obvious.  I usually pull my tails to the back side of the block, tie them in a knot, and clip the threads – like so:

By the way, this photo also shows the proper thread tension – with the top thread pulled just slightly to the back side of the block, thus the little black dots.  (We touched on this briefly in our last session)

 

Applique just takes practice – but the goal is to get the stitches evenly spaced – around all curves and points – so our project for today should look something like this:

 

or this:

 

That’s all for today!

Anybody have some photos of their project to share with the quilt along group?  Please email them to me at hmulder@wecnet.com.  Thanks!!!  I would love to see them 😉

 

 

 

 

A New Sweater

I know that some of you are waiting for the next post on the quilt along, but I wanted to do a post on something else in between.  For those of you doing the sew along, I will get to that post in a couple days.

In the meantime, I made a new sweater.  Last July.  Yes, that says July and I am just getting around to posting it now.   It’s been too cold to wear it and in July when I finished it, I was too pregnant to wear it, and then in August after having the baby, I was too . . . never mind to wear it.   But – it fits now, so here it is:

The pattern is Hitofude Cardigan by Hiroko Fukatsu.  I loved making this.  It has enough going on to keep me interested, but not so hard that I had to be counting,  focusing, or thinking too hard while making it.

It’s an ingenious, seamless design.  You start on the sleeves and yoke, which is just a simple rectangle.  The pattern then transitions into the body where you use yarn overs to increase to create shape.  It is meant to be worn open like this –

 

I added some hook and eye closures so I could wear it pulled together in the front if I wanted, or open.  (I need to replace the black hooks with silver ones though so they blend in more).

 

The original pattern is much shorter and has a lot more increases – so it has more drape and flow.  This style doesn’t work very well on me, so I followed a couple changes that some other Ravelry users were posting. (photos borrowed from the designer)

I just couldn’t resist this back, and I figured there was a way to make the design work for me.  Isn’t that beautiful?

 

I did less increases, so the back of my sweater isn’t as beautiful/dramatic, but it still works.

 

I loved this yarn too.  It’s Euroflax Sportweight Linen Layers by Prism.  I purchased it here.  It is hand-dyed so it has beautiful color variations that don’t show up in my photos.  The yarn has great drape and I think it works well for this lacey pattern.

To see more details, you can find my Ravelry link here.