Mission Quilts

Women with the Petersburg Lutheran Church spend two days a month visiting and sewing together mission quilts.  The dimensions of these quilts have to 60 inches by 80 inches and that's it.  The designs of the quilt are up to the makers.  Now that I'm retired, I get to do all kinds of fun things during the day.  I look forward to many more days of cutting and sewing quilts together with this group.  Everyone has a job.  The cutters at this get together were

Sue

Marcy and Sally

and Ginger.

Gail is a cutter too and Dell is sewing binding on the quilt and as you can see, fellowship is the order of the day.

Jackie got to sew the binding on this great puffy quilt.

Marilyn spent the day sewing this green top together.

Another example of how quilting brings people together.  Kris and Heidi make the quilt sandwiches.  This group has been meeting regularly since the mid '60's.  It started in our local Presbyterian Church and later moved to the Lutheran Church when the Head Start program took over the space at the Presbyterian Church.

Donna's job is to the the quilts with yarn.

Sally's yummy quiche and Heidi's zucchini cake gave us the right amount of energy to get through the afternoon.  

There's nothing like a day of quilting with incredible women.

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Jelly Girl Finish

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of this quilt, really...I made it last year while on our winter travel vacation.  I fell in love with it and decided to teach it as a class at home in Petersburg.  I then used this quilt to practice quilting on my new Q20.  When I made it, I knew it would be the quilt for our bed in our 5th wheel, so there was an incentive to get it done.  I finished hand sewing the binding on our first day in the trailer and here it is on the bed.  I made the pillows several years ago and they go with the quilt.  I need blue or white pillowcases I think.  

Linking to:  Finished or Not Friday, TGIFF, Off The Wall Friday, Beauties Pageant, Let's Bee Social,

Binding Tutorial

Ok, so I'm a late bloomer.  I have been quilting since 1978 by putting together interesting fabrics to make blankets.  One included a satin and cotton combination and all hand quilted.  Remember the days.   My first cotton baby quilt was a log cabin for my first child 37 years ago.  I truly love to make quilts.  I am not a great student when it comes to quilting however.  I am self taught and I rarely follow patterns to the letter, which causes all kinds of challenges -believe me.  So, binding has been a challenge. I like my binding to have diagonal seams.  I have tried different ways to make my bindings and many have resulted in binding that's too short or too long or lumpy.  I would panic every time I think of having to put a binding on a quilt. After 40 years of quilting, I finally sat down and attempted to solve my binding problem.  This is what I came up with. It may be a tried and true method for everyone, like I said, I'm a late bloomer.


1.  When you sew your binding onto the quilt, start just below the middle of the side of the quilt.  Make sure you have at least 12 inches of un-sewn binding at the start of your binding.

2.  Sew the binding around the quilt using the standard method.  Stop sewing 12 inches before the two ends join.  

3.  Open your binding and using a small ruler, make a 45 degree diagonal cut on one side of the binding strip

4.  Lay your small cutting board on top of the quilt where you are cutting your binding strips.  Put the the uncut binding strip on top of the board and then lay the cut strip on top of the uncut strip.  using your small ruler, measure 1/2 inch from the top edge of the diagonal strip and mark the uncut strip.

5.  Move the cut strip out of the way.  Using the marking as a reference point, lay your small square on the uncut strip.  Be sure your cutting the diagonal the right way.  I've made this mistake.

6.  After your two sides are cut,  sew your binding pieces together.  Having a large opening helps with this step.  Twelve inches is a bare minimum.  I generally leave a much larger opening between the two ends of the binding.

7.   Sew the binding onto the quilt.

8.  Press the binding away from the quilt.

 9.  Fold the binding over the edge of the quilt and press.  You can either machine or hand sew the binding to the quilt at this point.

Linking to:  Finished or Not Friday Can I Get A Whoop, Whoop, Show Off Saturday, Oh Scrap