Finishing Secret Sister quilt

Besides coughing, having a sore throat, feeling very tired all day, and finally deciding that I could NOT sing with the Grand Rapids Womens Chorus tonight, I have been finishing my Secret Sister quilt. One small step at a time.

Because I wasn't thinking straight when I bought ADDITIONAL fabric for the binding (to match the narrow blue inner border), I didn't get enough. I am so used to cutting my binding 2.25" wide that that is the number I used in my calculations. Well, in this case, for the first time, I wanted to make a WIDE binding, in fact the width of that inner border, which was .75 ". The only way I could figure out to do it with 13" WOF, and needing four strips, was to make SINGLE layer folded binding, instead of my usual double layer.

Practically always I sew my binding completely by machine, first on the back, and then folded over to the front and stiched barely over the folded edge. Probably it was a good thing that I wasn't very swift today, for during one of my quiescent periods I remembered that it is often a good thing to make a TRIAL piece when doing something new. The exercise which followed showed me that I needed to make a few adjustments to my method, such as not folding the bind right down the middle, but a little to one side. An "off-center" fold gave me a little more fabric for the front of the quilt to cover the first stitching from the back, and to make that "front" line of stitching line up on the back just a little onto the backing instead of on the binding itself. [See following photo.]

Maybe I'm not being very clear because my head is not working real well.

Anyway, I got it done, including the label and hanging sleeve.

But I then remembered that I hadn't done any quilting in the wide border because I wasn't sure HOW wide it was going to be with this unusualy binding. So I'm NOT done. I'm not thinking well enough to figure out a quilting pattern for that yet. (And thank goodness I didn't sew down the bottom of the sleeve, but only caught it iin the binding so far. I"ll need to pin it out of the way while quilting!)

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Sara

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Gratitudes:

Got my cookies for the reception done earlier

Wooly socks for warm feet

Choosing Christmas Eve hymns with Charlie