Project 12 - Finishing

Hello again.  The quilting is done.  The binding is done.  Now I get to throw in a movie and hand sew for a bit.

 Using the light box to re-draw the border design worked ok, but it's not as straight as before.  This one was a lot easier to sew but just as I was getting the hang of it, I ran out of border - this is just a small crib size quilt.

I managed to stay within the lines a bit better than before but I'm getting little jerks each time I stop to re-position my hands.  I can't seem to co-ordinate my foot action with my hand action yet.  More practice required!

You can see a little jerk on top of the heart shape on the left

There it is again - top left

I was just getting the hang of it when I ran out of quilt!

Next it needed trimming so I could make the binding.  If you don't look too closely, it came up ok, despite the dramas :)

I really like Harriet's method of making the borders bigger, then trimming them back.  The quilt measured up exactly to size.

BINDING

I actually wanted to use the blue again for the binding, but didn't have enough fabric left.  Instead I chose a yellow print from the same Circus collection.  This turned out to be a mistake, as it's another busy print and doesn't really improve the quilt at all - the blue would have been much better.

I am proud to say that I did all the binding without having to refer back to the book.  This is a bit of a milestone for me - retention of information not being one of my strong points.

Using Harriet's trick, I didn't cut the strips on the bias, but just used off-grain fabric.  It was still pretty stretchy even so, and should be plenty strong enough.  My calculations told me I needed 4.3 strips to make the binding.  I cut 4 strips thinking I could make it fit, then had second thoughts and cut another one.  I hate to waste fabric, but I would also hate to run short.

The joining part had me bamboozled the first few times I did it, I kept getting the angles wrong, but now I have it sorted.  I still can't quite get an exact fit, but am getting better.

I used this pressing gadget a friend made for me to press the seams open - thanks Ros, it works well!

Harriet's method for starting the binding

The corners are no problem - except I keep forgetting to take the machine off reverse!

That's the last join right there - could I have made it with just 4 strips?

That's about 1/4 inch between the first & last strips - bummer!

Nearly there - just hand sewing of the binding and into the wash