Bean’s Quilt: Part IV - The End!

Part IV: Quilting and Binding and the Final Results!

With quilting it’s always a good idea to start close to the middle and work your way out. Again, so many choices as to the actual quilting. I loved my sisters and the all over meandering. But with such a structured and linear block I wasn’t sure it would look right. But I didn’t want to only stitch in the ditch either. I compromised and meandered within the 9 patch blocks and did straight line, stitch in the ditch work everywhere else.

I’d recommend starting with the meandering and then doing the straight lines.



For the binding I chose 2 1/2 inch width; more is too much but less isn’t quite enough for me. I was able to get the strips I needed out of the extra backing fabric. You will need 6 strips. Sew them together on the bias, trim the seams to 1/4 inch, press and then press the entire long piece of binding in half length-wise.



Pin on your binding and sew! Then all that is left is the hand finishing. This quilt is a really nice size, but not too big that the hand stitching took me long. I had it done in less than a weekend.



I love how it turned out! I love all the colors, the yellow, the binding, the quilting, the whole traditional, vintage, old fashioned feel of the entire quilt.



Bean, your quilt is all ready! I hope you love it for a long time!!

Bean’s Quilt: Part III

Part III: Boarders, Backing and Basting

I was so torn about a boarder color for this quilt. Since we don’t know if Bean is a He or a She It had to be neutral. One of our favorite patterns, one the features a cat, only came in purple or blue. Although I used some purple in the quilt I didn’t want to feature it. And the blue felt too boy. J isn’t a fan or yellow or green, although I was all about the yellow after using it in my niece’s quilt. That left red. I wasn’t against red, but the red in the 9 patch was definitely the most prominent and I felt like more red would be overdoing things. So it ended up being one of the yellow prints with a fair amount of white in it. Fairly neutral, very soft and I thought quite vintagey. J was a good sport and said he didn’t mind the yellow that much.

Anyway, enough of my agonizing design choices.

You will need 1 yard of fabric for your outer boarder. You will also need 3 yards of fabric for your backing. I had two pieces of 1 1/2 yards which I pieced together for my back. The final measurements on the quilt were 50x57 so select your batting accordingly.

I made the outer boarder, my yellow fabric, 5” wide. I had to piece the two longer sides, but was able to simply cut and sew the shorter sides. You will need to cut five, 5” wide strips, use 1/4” mean allowance and iron your seams.



As with my niece’s quilt I spray basted all of my layers together.  And then it’s time to quilt, bind and finish!

Bean’s Quilt: Part II

Part II: Sashing

In a perfect world where all seams line up your 9 patch blocks would all now be exactly the same size and perfectly square at 6.5 inches. Measure yours and get a gist of your average size. You will use this measurement to determine the length of your sashing; aka. the 2.5” wide strip of white (with tiny cute polka dots) fabric you will sew onto each block.

After making my blocks and doing some measuring and calculating (with much help from my mother-in-law!) we decided we needed 1 yard of white fabric, and that was on the lets be safe and get a little extra side! You could probably get away with 2/3 yards here.

As always start by squaring up your white fabric, trimming selvedges and then cut 2.5” x 6.5” strips. You will need 24 total.

Using a 1/4” seam allowance sew a white strip onto the side of a 9 patch block. Then sew another 9 patch block onto the opposite side of your white strip. Sew on another piece of sashing, another block and so forth until you complete a row with five 9 patch blocks.


You will make six of these rows. 



Iron your seams!

And now it’s time to measure again and cut longer pieces of sashing to go between your rows. Again, in a perfect world where everything lines up this measurement would be 38.5 (each time you sew a 1/4” seam you’re losing yardage). Measure through the middle and get your approximate length and then cut your 2.5” wide by 38.5” long (or whatever yours comes out to) strips. You will need 7 total, 5 are technically sashing and 2 will become part of your inner boarder.



To create the remaining inner boarder you will need three 2.5” x 38-ish” strips. I had to piece both of mine and I chose to do it on the bias (a diagonal running seam instead of a straight line). So you will use about 2 1/2 of those three strips. Sew on your “short sides”, then do some measuring, piece your long boarders and sew those on. And you’ve got your inner quilt top plus your inner boarders all done!


Technically the boarders should all go into their own separate post, but since I used the same white fabric I added the inner boarders right into the sashing. If you’d rather break up the steps that is fine. But sometimes you get on a roll…

Bean’s baby quilt

Project  Baby quilt for Bean aka. our first born child

Pattern  An original design based on a traditional 9 Patch

Fabrics Storybook Classics by Windham Fabrics & Itty Pritty Polka Ditty by Holly Holderman

Part I: Building the 9 Patch Blocks  For this quilt I used a jelly roll of the Storybook Classics fabric. As always, pre-cuts make all of your own initial cutting easier and faster. A jelly roll contains 2.5 inch by 42 inch strips of fabric, typically about 40 strips all together. The first things I did was decide which strips I wanted to use and then trimmed the selvedge and cut each strip in half so it measured 2.5” x 21”.     Since I was making this quilt up as I went, I didn’t do all my fabric cutting at the start. I didn’t even have all of my fabric as I wasn’t sure how much I would need for things like sashing, boarders, backing and binding.  Once I had trimmed and cut all my strips I started right in on sewing. I decided I wanted six rows of five blocks, 30 blocks total. Since each block would contain nine small blocks that meant 270 little 2.5” x 2.5” blocks! It sounds daunting, but it’s really quite simple if you follow this trick.  Choose 3 strips of different fabric. Using a 1/4” seam allowance sew the three strips together. I pressed all my seams out because I was using a variety of different colors and not putting them in a set pattern.
After you have three rows sewn and pressed it’s time to cut again. Measure off 2.5” increments and cut. I was able to get 8 rows from each of my 21” long strips of three. That is 1/3 of each 9 patch block.

Yes, that means not every single row in your various blocks will be totally different. If you’re using less colors or going for a specific pattern this would actually be quite helpful! For me, it was still varied enough to make this shortcut completely worth it.



Since I wanted 30 nine patch blocks and I needed three, three block rows to make a nine patch, that meant I needed a total of 90 three block rows. Making sense? I hope so! Once I had my 90 little rows I proceeded to spread them out all over the floor to create as random a patchwork look as I could! 



I then pinned together each block top row to bottom row and layed the blocks in piles that corresponded to their rows. In the end I don’t think this was my final layout! It’s a lot to try and keep straight with just pins and stacks or fabric everywhere. But it was a good start to get the colors and patterns all mixed up.



The next step to creating your 9 patch block is tow sew together, using a 1/4” seam allowance, 3 of your rows of 3.



Last step is ironing your seams and ta-da, a completed 9 patch!



And before you know it you’ve got a stack of 30 blocks ready for the quilt.

The Finished Quilt!

First, some housekeeping.

To ensure that blue marker really does go away soak the whole quilt in cold water before washing. Put it through a cold rinse cycle on your machine and then check it. Once you’re sure the blue is all gone you can wash it! Front load washer, mild detergent, no softener (or use white vinegar), warm water on delicate. I also use a shout color catcher sheet just in case any of the fabrics decide they want to bleed. Dry it on delicate with dryer balls and not dryer sheets.

And then your quilt is totally completely done and beautiful and ready! So exciting!!

Niece’s baby quilt: Part VII

Binding

The thought did cross my mind to do a rainbow binding using strips of fabric from the stars. And then I decided I didn’t have enough energy for that and since I had enough backing fabric left that became my binding.

 

I cut 2.5 inch wide strips. and sewed them together on the bias. Then trimmed the extra fabric from my bias seam (the triangle) to 1/4 inch. How did I know how many strips to cut? Well, there’s an app for that! It’s called QuiltCalc by Robert Kaufman fabrics.

 

Before you cut your seams off to 1/4 inch on the wrong side of your fabric, make sure you sewed things together the right way! For some reason bias seams mess with my head and I’ve ripped out so many of these seams…  

Iron your new little bias seam open. It’s kind of a pain, but it’s worth it in the end. Don’t just fold it to one side or another. Then you get to fold the entire length of your binding (there will be multiple bias seams to be sewed, trimmed and ironed open) in half length wise. Break out your best press, iron and GO!  

Next you need to prepare you quilt for the binding you now have ready. That means trimming the edges so the three layers (top, batting, back) all line up. You’ll end up with a nice scrap heap of batting and backing at the end. Your quilt top shouldn’t be cut, it’s your guide and you are trimming the other two layers to fit it.

Ta-da! Except for the binding your quilt is done; pieced, quilted and all nicely trimmed up. The second picture is the binding pinned on. Line up the raw edge of the quilt and the raw edge of the binding; pin. Oh, and don’t forget to fold on end of your binding in about an inch and iron it down (so you don’t have a raw edge at the end).
Here’s a close up of the raw edges being matched up before I sewed. You will go all the way around your quilt using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. And yes, there are corners, do not panic. Warnings! DO NOT start at a corner or too near an end of your quilt and DO leave the first few inches unstitched so you can trim and tuck things neatly together at the end!

Stop sewing about a 1/4 inch from the corner. Lock in your stitch (forward and back one stitch will do). Now take it out of the machine. Turn your quilt so that you'll be in position to start sewing the binding onto the next side of your quilt. You’re going to make a corner by folding your binding first up and then down (see the second picture; I’ve pinned it after folding it). Your needle should go down 1/4 inch from the back edge of the quilt and 1/4 inch from the side edge of the quilt. And your stitching will pick up right where you stopped it a second ago before you removed the quilt from the machine and turned it.

For the best tutorial (with lots more great pictures) for binding check out Old Red Barn’s wonderful tutorial!!
Keep sewing around until you almost reach your starting point (give yourself a few un-stitched inches). You will probably need to cut some of your binding off because it tends to smooth out and you end with extra. this is a good problem. Trim so your ends overlap by about an inch. Tuck the raw edge into the nice pressed edge and continue sewing until it’s one continuous line! And you’re done with your machine.

To finish the binding you will fold the binding over from the front and do a blind stitch by hand all around the back side!