Binding Tute & Class

You'd think binding a quilt would be easy, but nope! There are a myriad of things that can go wrong.

I'm writing a tutorial about binding a quilt. It will include everything I know about how to do it so it lies flat, is even and the stitching is invisible. I've talked about how I do it on this blog so many times that I can summarize it in 81 words. The tutorial is 41 pages long and counting, so clearly there is more to it that that!. I'll show you how every single thing I do sets me up for success. I know lots of little tips that can make the task easier.

How do I know this?

At this writing I have bound over 310 quilts. That means I have made 310 invisible joins and mitered 1,240 corners. I'm kind of an expert.

The binding tute isn't ready yet. It needs another two weeks of writing and then it will run the gauntlet of my four editors, Julie, Allison, Megan and Mary. They will beat me up and I will fight back, object, and eventually give in. Or not. But each one of them brings a terrific skill to the process and have helped me make my tutorials clear and concise. That process typically takes a month. So look for the finished tutorial round about the middle of December. Don't worry. You'll hear about it here first.

And here's the exciting news. I'll be teaching a Binding class at Quilted Threads sometime in 2019.


I thought you'd like a little taste, so here's a binding hint. When you are mitering a corner, (as in the photo above,) use a small, flat, thin object, like the tip of a seam ripper to hold down one side of the binding while you fold the other side over to make a  mitered corner. It helps reduce the bulkiness that can happen there.

Birds, Birds, Birds Class at Quilted Threads

I taught a Birds class yesterday at Quilted Threads. It was a fun day of birdmaking, and the students made a lot of terrific looking birds. Here is a sampling:

I don't do pastels or soft colors, but DAMN, this bird is stunning!

Donnie and Laura drove from New York State to take the class and stayed in the local B&B the night before.  Before they left they asked for a picture of me with the Flight of Fancy quilt.  Well, sure!

A good time was had by all, and the students were thrilled to receive the new bird tutorial, Lynne's Liberated Birds, to take home. You can purchase it here.

Bird Tutorial for Sale on Etsy

The bird tutorial, "Lynne's Liberated Birds" is for sale in my Etsy shop here. It's available for ten US dollars and is an immediate download, so you can get started right away.

*** IMPORTANT***
These birds are NOT PAPER PIECED!  Absolutely NO knowledge of paper piecing is required.

If you buy my tutorial and make a bird, please send me photos. I'd love to share your success!  Wait until you see the special collection I will show you later.

And if that timing isn't cool enough, I'm teaching another Birds, Birds, Birds class at Quilted Threads in Henniker NH tomorrow. This class is full, but there will be others!

More More Birds

Here are the last three "sample" birds for the class on Saturday. My favorite is the green one.

Sunday Sewing

I enjoyed sewing Sujata Shah's variation of the Rail Fence blocks so much, I decided to keep going.

I decided to make another table cover for my dining room table using these blocks. This would be an "everyday / any season" tablecloth quilt, so I measured my table without the extension leaves and determined I'd need 20 blocks. Since I already had 4, I only needed to choose fabrics for 16 more.

Fortunately I had to drive up to Quilted Threads to deliver my Black and White Crayons quilt to hang in the shop as a sample for a Letters class I will teach there on January 31.

I went shopping and bought some fabrics, then threw them all in the washing mashine when I got home. Last night and this morning I put fabric pairs together and cut my strips.

i deliberately planned a strong light/dark contrast between the pairs and I wanted the light/dark pairs to relate to each other somehow. Generally they are the same color - blue with a light blue, orange with a light orange, etc., but sometimes the combination pair was more connected by shape or feel (see the second to the bottom pair in the leftmost column). I also tried to get a contrast in pattern. A rectilinear pattern paired with a more rounded, organic shape, for example, as in the tan fabric at the bottom of the second column.

(the photos will supersize when clicked, then double-clicked.)

My selections were severely hampered by the fact that I couldn't use any fat quarters. For each block I needed four 5" x 20" strips.  This also meant a half yard of fabric would only yield one block. Had I thought more about it while I was at QT yesterday I would have bought more fabric, but it's OK. This way each fabric is only represented once.

I totally screwed up when I cut the fabrics for the first blocks. For some reason I cut the strips 5" instead of 5-1/2" as instructed in the book. I had to readjust the size of the individual blocks, but that's no big deal. Adapt, improvise, overcome.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to be back in my own house after being displaced for 2-1/2 days.

Back to Butterflies and Birds

OK, I am back to making the sample for the Birds & Butterflies class. This is what I have so far. Now I have to add the asterisks. 

As you can see I haven't lined up the elements so far (Partly because I think that would be boring). I like that the elements in each row bounce up and down a bit. I also like the feeling of impending movement.  So...

There's this version. The quilt seems to want more than just five asterisk flowers, so I have made an assortment.  Here they are floating away very slightly.

Here I have rearranged the asterisks a bit, and let one of them float higher than all the others. I think that topmost asterisk is a bit too high.

In this version I've lowered that top asterisk just a bit, and I think it's better. There might be a tiny bit too much space at the top too.

I'm trying to avoid making a big quilt, and I guess I'm failing. But I'm happy with this and it will give my students a lot of examples of birds, butterflies, hearts and asterisks. I think it will be quite lovely when it is quilted, and all that empty space has lots of possibilities.

Guess what Julie and I did yesterday?  We went to my favorite quilt shop for some retail therapy.  How much retail therapy?  We were there for three hours and we both carried shopping bags filled with fabric when we left. I showed off the Crayons quilts and left the Bright Crayons to be hung on display.

Then we went to lunch.

Julie will lend me her new quilt to show my students in July, so she brought it with her. Julie likes to take photos of her quilts in interesting settings, so on the drive home we found a lovely park for a photo shoot.

The Mashed Potato Crayons is really a pretty quilt, when it isn't overshadowed by its bolder cousins.

Black quilts are notoriously hard to photograph, but I think Julie and I finally got a good one of the Black Crayons. You can even see the quilting in this photo. (What you can't see is me standing on the park bench, holding the quilt up!)