Community Giving Binding and Tutorial

 

This is a combination of a post about getting the quilt binding done for the BAMQ Community Giving quilt AND a tutorial on how to join the ends of the binding using the The Binding Tool by TQM. This is mostly for me, so that I don't have to go watch the instruction video each time. I'm pretty sure I picked this tool up on the Free Table at a BAMQ Sew Day.

You sew on a 2.5" wide quilt binding leaving a 12" gap between your starting and ending points. And I mean as close to exactly 12" as possible. (this is one point I wasn't always the best at). If you don't measure this, it's hit or miss on whether the binding will end up being the right length.

The printing on the tool is ALWAYS face-up. The square end of the tool butts up against the spot where the stitching ends on the left, and you mark the binding with the "MARK HERE" line on the tool.

Unfold and open up the binding flat, right-side up, place the tool on the binding and align the "MARK HERE" line with the line you've marked. The binding fabric they use in the tutorial is a solid, so it's a little hard to tell which side is up so I wanted to note that mainly for myself.

Trim the binding using the angled side of the ruler. Okay, that's the left-hand side of the binding cut and ready to sew together, now moving on to the right-hand side.

Turn the ruler around, but don't turn it over, **Remember it stays Printed Side up**. Butt up the square end of the ruler to the stitching ending point. Mark the binding using the "Mark Here" line.

Spread open the binding, right side up. This is the point I've messed up so pay attention: Align the small angled edge of the ruler with the line you've marked.

Trim off using the angle of the ruler. 

It's pretty standard from here out, pin the two ends together, aligning the snub nosed ends.

Sew with a 1/4" seam. Press open.

Sew down the binding over the 12" gap you had left. You're done/

And then, when you flip over the binding, if you've got a label, don't forget to add it in. For a quilt that's going to be used and washed a lot, I don't hand-sew the binding.

There it is, all done! No gaps, no lumps, no tears or un-sewing.

I made the binding out of some of the quilt's own excess backing fabric (the green one) and a piece of fabric left from the backing of one of my quilts (the yellow one).

I hope that tutorial helps me in the future, and maybe you too if you happen to have this tool in your ruler stash.

Community Giving Blocks

 

I've made five blocks for BAMQ Community Giving efforts this month. The one on the top left is our regular Postage Samp block. The other four blocks are made using the pattern for the two blocks that make up the Diagonal 16 Patch quilt.

Post Sew Day

I brought a few things home with me from Sew Day yesterday. As we were cleaning up at the end, there were several items left on the Free Table. I chose to bring home this lovely half yard of tree peony fabric as well as an interesting piece of perforated "Stitchable Felt". Not sure what it's meant for, but I am definitely going to sew on it, and will likely use it in my ICAD pieces this week ahead. Two new Fudenosuke brush pens that I got in the mail. And in the back there, a Community Giving quilt that needs to be bound.

That was the first thing I did today, I unrolled it to measure the size to see how much binding I need to make. And also which color/type of fabric I should chose.I'm thinking green blue or orange, maybe prints? There's one of the great embroidered BayAreaModernQuilting.com quilt labels that one of our members machine embroiders for us to use on these Community Giving quilts.

First I stay-stitched around the outside of the already quilted quilt. And then I trimmed off the excess batting and backing. There was enough of the green print backing fabric left over to use for the binding, I just need to find another print to add in to the mix and cut it all down to size. This is a really happy bright quilt and I love the all-over quilting design that was used.
 
 

Community Giving Blocks

I'm getting ready for Saturday's Bay Area Modern Quilting (BAMQ) meeting, and that means stitching up the Community Giving quilt blocks that I took the supply kits for. One of the kits was  short by two 2.5" squares, so I cut some from the fabrics I used for my mosaic table runner. They were on the top of the pile so they were easy to grab. 

It's a really easy block to put together, and here are all four. And this time I pressed all the seams open after the experience at the March Sew Day when we were all making these blocks without any seam pressing guidance. It makes a difference when you're putting a quilt together.
 

Community Quilt Finish

 

At the most recent Bay Area Modern Quilting Sew Day (just last Saturday) we worked as a group to complete a quilt top. Let's just say...it took the entire day. I brought other things to work on, but I only took a short break to trim some of the pink Lupine Mystery flying geese blocks.

The design of the quilt was great (I believe friend Jaye was the one who suggested and supplied the pattern), and as usual our organizer, Peggy was super prepared with printouts and instructions and block making kits. It made the whole process easier. We were making a quilt made up of two blocks, the above is the more complicated one. The other was all white with two colored squares in opposite corners. I believe I sewed six (maybe eight) blocks total.

It makes for a wonderful quilt, doesn't it? As you sew. the blocks seem very disjointed and maybe a little ugly given the random fabric combinations (it's as scrappy as it gets), but then it all works out together to make such an interesting quilt. We buckled down and sewed together the blocks and joined the rest of the sections together. Some was chunked, some was not. I was sewing the last long seam to put the two halves of the quilt together at our usual departure time of 4pm. Everyone else was all done and packed up, and then my bobbin ran out. Of course! 

But I rallied and sewed on, and was able to hand it off to our wonderful member Laura McHugh, who does the long-arming for us, who was waiting. As I finished the last seam, I held up the final result and don't have a picture. Laura posted this one on her Facebook of the quilt on her long-arm setup, and it's already been beautifully quilted! Amazing what a committed group can do together.

Community Giving HST's

 

I sewed twenty-six HSTs for a Community Giving quilt. We're working on another quilt at Sew Day today, but I'll be turning these in to the organizers, hopefully they'll remember which quilt they were for.

7 Community Giving Blocks

 

At the September Sew Day (which feels like years ago), I picked up a bunch of Community Giving block packs. These sixteen square blocks are the standard that they like to use.

I got into production mode to get them all sewn together.

They're a fun, diverse group of fabrics playing against the white or white-patterned backgrounds. Seven more to add to the stack.

2 Postage Stamps

I finished two of the BAMQ Community Giving postage stamp blocks.

That's two more done, and five left to go.
 

Old Town Sew Day

 

This month's Sew Day for Bay Area Modern Quilting (known on this blog as BAMQ) was as usual super fun, and this time, quite productive for me personally and all of us as a group. Before we got started on the group project, I worked on pressing all of these previously sewn together partially assembled blocks for the Old Town mystery quilt.

Two more blocks were finally assembled and pressed making a total of fifteen blocks done

As a group we worked together to make an entire quilt top. It was a quite a good turnout of members and we had a lot of participation in the project so it went together in just one day's effort. There was a main block, two types of side blocks and corner pieces to make. Our Community Giving organizer was Peggy and she had it so well set-up with demonstration blocks like the one above, the background pieces were all using and the instructions for each type of block. It made it so much easier for all of us to dive and get going.

Another one of our members, Carrie took this picture of Peggy getting down to business on designing the quilt with all of our blocks. The leftovers from sewing the block were also assembled into another quilt top. I was too busy sewing them to take pictures of that unfortunately, but they ended up as

Diamond in a Four Patch blocks in two different sizes.

A great day of sewing and socializing!

Postage Parts

 As I was talking about yesterday, I picked up this quilt top kit at the BAMQ meeting from the Community Giving table. I was saying that my plan was I'd be using these units and blocks as leaders and enders for another project. Well, that didn't happen. I just did it all on its own. I think I was just too interested in seeing how it got put together. First up, I had to look up the directions for 8-at-a-time HSTs. Just checking that I had it right before cutting up any fabric.

The 8 at a time method really works for me, as long as I remember to do a scant 1/4" seam.

The HSTs turned out surprisingly accurately, but I'm still glad that I trimmed them to size.

One of the included squares for the Postage Stamp blocks was cut a little too close to the selvedge and had a white strip showing. So I used a fabric marker to add some color. Otherwise it was going to look like the white square was too big and a rectangle instead. It would have thrown off the pieced pattern.

This is a good example of the power of HSTs in a quilt pattern. Now all the pieces are constructed so it's time to sew it together the rest of the way into a quilt top. 

Postage Stamp Quilt

At the BAMQ meeting on Saturday, over at the Community Giving table, the ever organized Peggy had handy-dandy irresistible kits put together for making up a small quilt top. Included along with the helpful illustrated instructions are five already completed Postage Stamp blocks, enough fabric to make the big HSTs, and squares for making the partial Postage Stamp blocks seen in the pattern.

I'll be using these as leaders and enders while I do some more piecing on another project.

And over on the free table, I at first resisted, but then gave in and took this FQ from one of the recent Alice in Wonderland fabric lines to add to my "words on fabric" bin. I thought the little illustrations and coloring were super interesting. Yes, I've already added this to my Fabric-IN spreadsheet for the 2025 Fabric Tracker.
 

Quick Community Binding

 

I attended the BAMQ meeting yesterday and picked up this Community Giving quilt that needed binding to made and applied. Isn't this a fun one, I really love these zingy colors. And since I'm on a roll with binding things, I figured I'd get one done for the group.

First I stay-stitched the edges of the quilt, just because it helps the seams that hit the edges not pop open.  Then I trimmed off the excess of batting and backing.

I found a fabric in my purple boxes that I thought worked really well, ironed it, cut it and sewed it up into some 2.5" binding. After all that, actually sewing the binding on was pretty easy and quick.Now to try and remember to bring it along to Sew Day to turn it in. 

Hey, that's another amount for me to add to my Fabric Tracker for the year. With this addition it means I'm at 4.23 Net yards of fabric. To be specific according to my calculations, 34.78 yards Bought - 30.55 yards used so far. Meaning I've added 4.23 yards of fabric to my stash so far this year.

Labeled and Bound

 

I was working on getting the binding on to one of the BAMQ Community Giving quilts yesterday and just in time, I remembered the label. This is an embroidered label that one of our members made and was handing out at Sew Day last weekend. It's so nicely done, isn't it?  I sewed it right into the binding so that it would be secure.

And here's how the quilt looks with the binding completed. I believe that this quilt is one of friend Jaye's donation quilt tops, but I wasn't able to find it on her blog, so maybe not? Anyways...it's done now and I have to remember to turn it in.