Stitching News

You won't believe how long it's taken me to find these photos. My computer had hidden them somewhere special. I'll get the hang of it, eventually. I've actually spent a couple of sessions in Quilty Quarters, hooray!

I decided to go with Faux Piped Binding on the Hidden Wells. Have you ever tried this kind of binding? It's very effective. You need 1 1/2" wide strips of the main colour, grey on mine, and 1 3/4" srips of the fabric you want to use for the piping, obviously the pink, Alison Glass fabric on mine. Oh, both fabrics are Alison Glass.

After making both strips long enough to go the whole distance around the quilt ( the joins need to be diagonal. like you do with normal binding) you sew the two strips together, lengthwise.

Then press the seam allowance towards the accent colour.
Next, and this is a very important bit, carefully fold the binding over ensuring you fold the seam allowance in half, that's what gives the plumpity appearance to the the binding (I wrote plumpity, maybe it should be plump-ity-ness ?) 
I've just looked online and found that there are loads of video tutorials to make Faux Piped Binding. None of them do this tacking bit and you will see (if you do go to watch any) that lots look more like binding with a flat flange.

I like to tack the whole way along the binding to stop it, the faux bit, from going flat, the seam allowance will want to stay flat so you have to show it who is the boss!

 You can see I used a bright turquoise thread to tack mine, which also helps when it comes to unpicking those large stitches after it's all stitched down.

You will need to sew the binding to the back of the quilt rather that to the front, as we usually do. Check first that you won't have any joins landing on the corners, if you do have joins hitting corners, that's a nightmare you won't like!
Once the binding is stitched in place and the ends carefully joined together, press the binding from the back side to make a good crisp seam, this will help a lot when you pull it over to the front.

You really need to use your Walking Foot with all the layers.

Having just told you that, it is very tricky to sew your binding right in the ditch of the piping with a walking foot, only because of the width of the foot's plate. See how you go. If it's too tricky, try your zipper foot as you need to get up close to the piping really. 

This zipper foot, in my photo, is a Walking Foot!!! I kid you not... the Juki UX8 has a built in Walking foot that can be used with lots of different feet, even the Quarter inch one. (I know it's extravagant and pretty pricey) but it makes the BEST faux Piping with the most accurate and wonderful finish.

I'm not brilliant at describing stuff like this but, if you want to pop in to my shop, I can go through it again and give you a little sample to guide you. I keep all the left over bits exactly for that purpose. Alternatively come for a little lesson?

If there's a small group interested, we could make a sample together, like a workshop. I'm sure I could cope with that, ha! 

My binding is done, now I can go back in and do a little bit more quilting. It won't be anything too fancy, the patchwork pattern doesn't need it really. Don't hold me to that. I will please my very own self when the time comes!

Remember that my shop will be back to normal opening hours from Tuesday and there's a Checkley Sunday Sewday coming up on January 28th, have you booked and paid for your place? There's still plenty of time if not.