Quilting Quandry
Quilting is among the fabric arts that has always fascinated/terrified me. I've been easing into it with my dabbling in Amy Butler patterns and for my holiday gifts I decided to dive in head first. Honestly, I thought I was taking it pretty easy. Turns out: I'm in a bit over my head.
For my grandma I'm making an apron using a modified Amy Butler pattern (actually a bit of an Amy Butler pattern mash up) which I'll post about as soon as it's a bit closer to done. The apron is pretty straightforward (mostly, but again more on this later) just quilted squares really. I borrowed a friend's rotary cutter and mat for that project, and that gave me all kinds of false confidence and joy. If you've never used a rotary cutter you must do so now. Wow does that make things easy. Anyway. That project is coming along alright.
The over mitts? Not so much. I figured they would be pretty easy to toss off and foolishly I was most concerned about the whole "making a quilt sandwich" part, that is: layering fabric and wool and stitching it together. Given that this pattern just has a basic grid quilting stitch that part was easy as pie, much to my delight. Binding, however, not so much. I've unpicked and redone the binding on these three times already and I'm still not happy with it. Argh. Now, I may be making it extra hard for myself in that these are rounded edges, still. What the heck am I doing wrong?
I've got a few ideas and I'd love some pointers if anyone has ideas/tips for building up my binding skills. So, things I see not working quite right:
1. While making the quilt sandwich part is easy, I find that my fabric pulls to the centre so I end up with wool a fairly large (say 1/4 inch) exposed wool border around the edges. The second time I attached the binding I trimmed this off, but it means I've made slightly smaller mitts than intended. In the future should I cut my fabric a bit larger than my wool layers so they line up better in the end?
2. Binding widths. I made this binding to the width specified, but can I make it bigger? I don't even know that that would help. My binding isn't very evenly spread from front to back inspite of my best intentions to line it up. Is there a trick here? What am I missing?
3. Pinning. It's hard to pin curves at the best of times. With binding? It seemed impossible. This kind of relates to things lining up, as described above, but still, do others pin? If I do straight lines should I pin? I did hand baste the binding on the third time I did this and that helped, but it didn't really solve things.
Any and all quilting expertise welcomed.
For my grandma I'm making an apron using a modified Amy Butler pattern (actually a bit of an Amy Butler pattern mash up) which I'll post about as soon as it's a bit closer to done. The apron is pretty straightforward (mostly, but again more on this later) just quilted squares really. I borrowed a friend's rotary cutter and mat for that project, and that gave me all kinds of false confidence and joy. If you've never used a rotary cutter you must do so now. Wow does that make things easy. Anyway. That project is coming along alright.
The over mitts? Not so much. I figured they would be pretty easy to toss off and foolishly I was most concerned about the whole "making a quilt sandwich" part, that is: layering fabric and wool and stitching it together. Given that this pattern just has a basic grid quilting stitch that part was easy as pie, much to my delight. Binding, however, not so much. I've unpicked and redone the binding on these three times already and I'm still not happy with it. Argh. Now, I may be making it extra hard for myself in that these are rounded edges, still. What the heck am I doing wrong?
I've got a few ideas and I'd love some pointers if anyone has ideas/tips for building up my binding skills. So, things I see not working quite right:
1. While making the quilt sandwich part is easy, I find that my fabric pulls to the centre so I end up with wool a fairly large (say 1/4 inch) exposed wool border around the edges. The second time I attached the binding I trimmed this off, but it means I've made slightly smaller mitts than intended. In the future should I cut my fabric a bit larger than my wool layers so they line up better in the end?
2. Binding widths. I made this binding to the width specified, but can I make it bigger? I don't even know that that would help. My binding isn't very evenly spread from front to back inspite of my best intentions to line it up. Is there a trick here? What am I missing?
3. Pinning. It's hard to pin curves at the best of times. With binding? It seemed impossible. This kind of relates to things lining up, as described above, but still, do others pin? If I do straight lines should I pin? I did hand baste the binding on the third time I did this and that helped, but it didn't really solve things.
Any and all quilting expertise welcomed.
. How nutty is that? 
is a business book for women looking for advice to start or run a successful small business. The book features advice from some pretty smart gals including Jenny Hart (Sublime Stitching), Grace Boney (Design Sponge), Alex Beauchamp (Another Girl at Play), and many others.
i have no advice, but wanted to send some sympathy. i'm also happy to hear i'm not the only one in this position. i got so frustrated trying to re-sew some binding on a gift last night that i accidentally stabbed my finger with my sewing scissors. i'll check back to read other people's advice before starting my next attempt.
PS the mitts are cute--they look like little snowshoes!
Posted by:sarah h | December 04, 2007 at 06:26 PM
My best advice is to keep up with the basting, as you did on your third try,plus-if you're making your own binding you should try pressing it so that one edge is slightly wider than the other, then always sew with the slightly narrower side of binding facing up towards you.
I cannot sew binding without basting first and I do round pot holders (I'm terrified of doing squares, how stupid is that?) and I get the best results when I gently pull the binding as I'm basting so that it lays fairly flat.
Dang it, writing it down doesn't make it clearer. Just practice and always baste.
But, to be honest, I think your oven mitts look great.
Posted by:Angelinaa | December 04, 2007 at 08:17 PM
i have all kinds of binding trickery up my sleeve from my previous life sewing things. much too much to type. remind me on monday or feel free to give me a call if you're working on it this weekend and i will divulge all my binding secrets ;-)
Posted by:Ariane | December 06, 2007 at 08:15 PM