Wednesday, March 18, 2020

binding!

Trudy Hughes pattern, I pieced this in the late 1980s
I remember making this but do not remember who designed it
I used the Blanche Young method for this, at least 25 years ago
My design! Search under Party Line

Bin o' bindings
I was missing binding handwork as I find that to be contemplative.
Seth and I are on a mission to do a project every day, and in cleaning out a closet we came upon four un-bound quilts. Yesterday I spent a couple hours doing the machine work of binding.
I was able to jump right into it because I have a bin where I keep leftover bindings.
My preference is a bias french fold binding and a bit wider one. I keep it stored on spent spools.
I used to cut my bindings  at 3 1/2 inches, but for about a decade have been cutting them 3 inches. They fold to 1 1/2 and with the edge of my walking foot as my guide the front has a bit under 1/2 inch showing.
Two of these quilts have scrappy bindings. My bin still has some that were cut 3 1/2 so I took a sliver off the  edge to get them to work with the 3 inch cut ones.

I have since found another unbound quilt and another with just the handwork left.
Much contemplative time for me.

"And Mary pondered all these things in her heart."

8 comments:

darlynn said...

Ohhhhhh I love that verse!!!! Lucky you with all that contemplation time waiting.

Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson said...

I remember teaching from the Trudy Hughes books in the late 80s. I made the same pattern as you in rose and navy blue as well as many others.

patty a. said...

How fun to find those quilts and that is great you are getting them done! You will have plenty of quiet hand stitching to do!

Chantal said...

Hard to believe you had all these beauties hiding somewhere. It's time to show them to the world. Enjoy the slow stitching. ;^)

Anonymous said...

question: would you explain the French fold binding or is there a tutorial somewhere? Have not heard of that. And I am soooo glad you posted that photo of the bindings rolled around empty spools. I keep a bin of leftover bindings and occasionally combine them for a scrappy quilt. And just for no reason I started keeping empty spools just to watch them accumulate, I guess! I was about a half a second away from throwing them all away when doing a clean up last week.......well, you can guess where this is going.......YAY!!!

Anonymous said...

sorry - I am the Anonymous commenter above and having trouble getting Google to recognize my account. I ID'd myself above - Carol in Texas - but that was deleted when it published. Weird!

Cynthia@wabi-sabi-quilts said...

I love your bin of bindings, and the idea to use empty spools. What a great feeling to be at binding stage with several quilts. Enjoy your contemplative time.

Sandy said...

What a brilliant idea to use empty spools to store binding! Of course with the thin thread they're making these days, it takes for-ev-er to uses up a spool of thread. Good for you for getting some task done every day. I've done the refrigerator and half the kitchen cabinets so far, and lots od sewing, naturally.