Monday, March 11, 2013

5/12


Date:  March 2013

This quilt will go down to Mexico at Easter.

Lessons:  This is from my apple box fabric.  I made it more than a year ago, discovered that I had cut corners (assumed that someone else's cut squares were identical in size) and thus had split seams and threw it in a corner.

I used 2" wide strips of fabric, folded them in half like I was binding and sewed them down next to the split seam - raw edge to raw edge.  I then folded the strip over, again as if i was binding and hand stitched the folded edge on the other side of the seam.  Problem solved.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

4/12


Date:  February 2013

This quilt went down to Mexico last week.  It is 4/12 quilts for missions this year.  The top was made and forgotten last year.  I'm pretty sure it was one of the first Apple Box quilts.

Monday, March 4, 2013

3/12



Date:  February, 2013

3/12 is uglier on the flannel side because I wanted to use every scrap of flannel I could, but I love how the orange and blue looks together.  I should do this on purpose . . .

This quilt is also in Mexico

Friday, March 1, 2013

2/12


Date:  January 2013

In my quest to do 12 quilts for missions organizations this year, here is #2.  This one is in Mexico.  I used denim from my huge tubs full, heavy fabric from the Apple Boxes and flannel from many sources.

Easy Placemats

This was my prototype.


Then I had some fun.


Start with strips of fabric that are about 4½" x 11½".  They're placemats.  The size isn't critical.  Sew the strips together with a quarter inch seam.

Cut backing fabric to be slightly larger than the front.  That'll make it maybe 18 x 12 or so.

Cut binding and bias strips.  The bias strips should be approximately 1¼" wide.  You'll need a strip about 40" wide (the length of your fabric) for one placemat.  I cut my binding at 2½"  Each placemat used about a 60" long strip.


Piece your binding strips together and iron them in half.  Create bias tape by ironing your edges under.


Fast bias - just pull it under your iron.


Lay your backing fabric pretty side down and smooth out.


Layer fill and your topside down, smoothing everything out.


Pin your bias down.  Do straight lines, curvy, whatever, but try to keep the bias over your seam lines.


Choose a stitch and sew down your bias.  The beauty of this project is - you just quilted it too!


Square up the mat.


If you plan to hand bind the mats, go ahead and attach your binding on the front as usual.  Because I'm going to machine stitch mine down, I'm going to attach it from the back so the pretty stitching is perfect on the front.


Voila.  I did my placemats individually when I had minutes and found they took about 35 minutes each.  If you had the time to do each step once for the entire quantity of mats you need, I bet the time per each would be cut down substantially.