Quilt Along With Leah Day - Week 13

Finished! It isn't a quilt until it is squared up and bound. Actually, if I was creating one of my own artworks versus completing a Leah Day assignment, it wouldn't be finished until the label and sleeve were sewn on, it was photographed and it had its own page on my website. Truth be told, I don't consider a Leah Day assignment complete until I share my experience with you.

Hearts and Feathers - Finished!

This was humble pie week. Leah reminded us to "measure twice and cut once." This is an adage that I have followed for years and did for this assignment. However, I would like to add the codicil to review the assignment, even a keep a copy on hand in the studio, before executing the assignment. The goal for this assignment was straightforward - rinse the quilt to remove the marking pen and starch, block the quilt and then bind it. But wait, before immersing it in the water I was to measure the quilt to know what to block it to. Oops! I squared up the quilt by laying it flat on my piece of styrofoam board and using the center point of the corner hearts as end points of my square up lines. Looked good enough when it dried.

In order to trim the quilt I used those same four corners and the intersection of the central hearts to lay my ruler in an X formation. (One line at a time.) I differed from Leah here. I always square my work on the diagonal. I extended the line beyond the hearts so that I would have a border of micro stippling. 22" on the diagonal worked for me. I made a small dot at the official four corners. Next I trimmed the quilt.

Now it was time to make the binding. I always make bias binding using the Mobius strip method. Why? Two reasons. First bias binding is more giving than straight of the grain. Second, and this is the most important reason, it wears much better. If a thread gets nicked or pulled on the edge of a binding the pulled thread would run the length of the binding strip if it is cut on the straight of the grain. If it is bias binding it will only result in a short tear. I usually make double fold bias binding and use a 2" strip. This results 1/2" of binding showing on the front of the quilt. Leah recommended just folding the strip in half. I wanted a smaller width for my binding since this is a small quilt. I dropped the width of my strip 1 1/2". Double oops. I didn't do the math and this left me with a vary narrow binding. A folded binding works differently than a double fold binding. Who knew?

Close-up of Hearts and Feathers Binding

I soldiered on. Got that mini binding sewn to the back, folded to the front and found I didn't need to pin it quite as obsessively as Leah recommended. I just went slowly and used the index finger of my right hand to hold down the binding between pins, gently pushing the binding towards the inside of the quilt.

Next problem was using the recommended foot for my machine to create the button stitch. The foot was great for staying lined up with the binding. It lost major points for seeing where the stitch was. Therefore, there are some wobbles that when the quilt is reviewed by the quilt police would be obvious.

What I learned this time? The same lesson I seem destined to learn over and over again. Don't rush through a project just to finish it. Each oops was a reminder of how just a simple double check would have saved much angst.