FIRST FINISH OF THE YEAR! (But it's not finished!)

I had some time yesterday to get my first finish of the year but fell short of hand stitching the binding down.  This small quilt wall handing has been pieced for over a year and a half but I have procrastinated because I am afraid of failure.  The quilting is something that I have not had much experience with.  This is about to change.  I decided to try mock hand quilting on my machine.  You probably have tried it before.  You use a regular thread in the bobbin and an invisible thread on the top.  My Janome machine suggests using a stitch called a "sculpture stitch" (#171) and adjusting the tension to a #6.  What happens is the invisible top thread pulls the regular bobbin thread to the top in a fashion that when stitched you find it looks a lot like hand quilting.  I have done it before, but not in a long time and on a very small quilt that was a panel.  The mail problem I had was moving over thick seams of piecing.  I found that sewing very slow is very necessary.

 I layered my backing, batting and quilt top after pressing all until smooth and straight.  Make sure you have no puckers anywhere and pin all together.  The batting and backing will be trimmed after the quilting is complete and the excess backing will be used as the binding.

 I then began my marking.  I used a chalk marker and, of course, a straight edge ruler.

 I used the simplest method quilting lines which was diagonal through the blocks, both directions.  I only marked a line or two at a time as the chalk brushes away easily.  Choose the color of invisible thread that you think will be the most invisible on your quilt.  Funny, but I have a real problem with this thread because it is so invisible.

 Here is a pic of after I marked a few lines of quilting.  I did rub some of it off and had to do it again so you can benefit from my mistakes!  Yay!!

 As you begin to quilt you will start to think it is puckering and will never ever be right again!  But think again.  When all is done, if you have quilting similarly all over the quilt, it will be straight again.  I promise.

 I think you can see in this pic that the top and bottom look good but the middle looks puckered.  That is because it has not been quilted.  Take your blessings where you can fine them!

 In this picture, I hope you can see the hand quilted look.

 I actually began working on the binding before I finished the center quilting because I stipple quilted the middle.  I was anxious to see if my idea of bringing the backing around for a binding was going to work.  I folded the backing out of harms way and trimmed the batting to 1/2 inch all the way around.  I then trimmed the backing 1 1/2 inches all the way around.  I them folded the edge of the backing to the edge of the finding and then folded the backing one more time and pinned it in place.

The corner will need to be worked with before you can fold the next side.  After the first fold, you will need to fold back the edge into a triangle sort of.  This makes that edge disappear.

 Press all really good even using a little Magic Sizing or starch.  Fold down and continue pinning.

This pic was taken before I pressed really well---my bad!!

 Here is the semi-finished quilt, ready for binding to be hand stitched.  You would not believe all my computer woes lately.  I got a new Microsoft Surface Book for Christmas, but it is so different from any I have ever had, it is taking me awhile to figure it all out.  This posted before I was finished yesterday so many of you think, "Well, she just cut it off right at the end!  Sorry!  and anther day last week I was trying to post from my phone and a blank posted.  Many of you tried to "read" something and "nothing" was there.  Again, "So Sorry".

Back soon`--  I have a couple BLOCKS OF THE MONTH going that I want to show you.

HAPPY FEBRUARY!

OK~I PROMISE~I'T REALLY FINISHED THIS TIME!!

LULU IS SO SO TIRED OF THIS QUILT. SHE SAID SHE CAN'T BELIEVE THAT I AM POSTING IT AGAIN!!!

I keep claiming that this quilt is "FINISHED". Well, the piecing is finished, the quilting is finished, and now the binding and label are finished. So girls, it is truly finished this time. I promise you. I wanted to put a satin binding on it as babies and young children seem to love to rub a soft silky feeling edge to sooth them and calm them when tired. I couldn't find a color I really liked, but finally settled on this light blue.

I had the quilter to leave the quilt untrimmed so that I could trim the batting and binding as needed from the edge of the quilt according to the binding width so that the binding would look full and nice. I ended up timming it 1 3/4 inch from the edge of the quilt (binding was 2 inches wide). I tried attaching this binding the same as I would a narrow cotton binding and you can't really do that as the binding has finished edges therefore it is just top stitched on--front and back at the same time. I went HERE for my first tips on how to attach.

I used a narrow zig zag stitch and invisible thread. This worked well--with the zig zag stitch you have a better chance of catching the back edge of the binding, but just in case you don't sometimes I can say with experience that you can go back and stitch down the parts that did not catch with a straight stitch and no one will ever know.

I stitched all the way to the corner of the quilt edge (not the batting/backing) and then pulled the quilt from under the machine so I could work with the corner. I folded the binding down the next side being careful to see that the corner of the binding met the corner of the batting/backing corner. I then pinned and then went back to the corner and folded the excess fabric inside the mitre one way on the front side and opposite on the backside. I then put the quilt back under the machine and started stitching down the next side.

You can see here that the invisible thread and the small zig zag stitch look very neat and nice. I sewed the corners down by hand.
Here is my label. I love this little poem. This is what it says:

It's Your Quilt

It's OK if you sit on your quilt.

It's OK if your bottle gets spilt.

If you swallow some air And you burp, don't despair,

It's OK if you spit on your quilt.

There are scraps old and new in your quilt,

Put together for you on your quilt.

If your gums feel numb'Cause your teeth haven't come}

It's OK if you chew on your quilt.

We expect you to lie on your quilt,

If you hurt you may cry on your quilt.

On a cold rainy night,Don't you fret, you're all right,

You'll be snug, warm and dry on your quilt.

by Nancy Riddell

There is one more tutorial on applying satin blanket binding available online, but I did not find it very helpful. If you know of one, please post a comment. I would love to share it with everyone. I have searched, but have not been successful. The Wrights site is the best one I found.