Fairly Recent New Inputs

 

We had an excellent BAMQ meeting on Saturday, and as per usual I snagged something off of the free table. Is this not the cutest fabric ever? I have had several cats over the years who definitely believed they were part deer, because of their outdoor interactions with the local deer gang. I totally missed this Violet Craft fabric line from 2016, so it's fun to get a "vintage" fabric that's new to these eyes at least. I love how the free table changes over the year depending on who is doing a stash cleanout, etc.

And then there was a nice surprise, I won the drawing for the BAM BOM prize this month. And it's all yellows and oranges. These are great, I never have enough yellow choices.

Then I realized I hadn't posted my recent purchase from the great quilt shop, Sewlarium in Portland. The owner has been making very entertaining reels on Instagram recently, one that spurred me to shop online at his shop. Another one of the William Morris/Kaffe Fasset fabrics, an interesting check, too cute to pass up vintage looking owls and a speckled orange.

And how nice, he threw in one of their shop stickers which is so hilarious, I love it so much.And then way back in June, I went shopping for the fabric to make the pillowcases for friend Amy, which I found at Hart's Fabric in Santa Cruz. 

That's three of the fabrics there, the other one that Really Doesn't Fit In,  is for the medallion quilt I've been collecting fabrics for.

Also in June, I went to Santa Cruz Vac n' Sew, because I needed some more lime green for the 6x6 quilt, that's what those two greens are, then there's the yard of toweling that I got for more napkins,  and some upholstery thread and sewing machine needles. The Marcia Derse fabric is from The Granary.

Really catching up here, again in June, I went to a doctor appointment that is dangerously close to Golden State Quilting, and apparently I was in a shopping mood. I got two more new Marcia Derse prints, a couple of FQ's in acid green and yellow, a new Quilter's Select ruler, a mini braid template, 

and finally a FQ pack of the newest Anna Maria Horner fabrics. Aren't they just so fun and exuberant? Seen here with the two FQ's I got down at the bottom.

Well that turns out to have been a whole lot of fabric acquisition since the last time I updated the fabric tracker.  I swear, July was such a weird mind-bender that I was wondering where all this new fabric came from, so I'm glad I went through this exercise for this post and to:

Updating the 2026 fabric tracker: 

26.25 fabric in

- 26.85 fabric out =

-.6 NET Fabric Usage

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.

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.
 
 

Free P.O.T.S.

 

You just never know what's going to be on the Free Table at the Bay Area Modern Quilting meetings and Sew Days. This time it was this kind of large, two sided opening thread organizer box. I think this will be a much better solution to corralling all the embroidery threads I've accumulated instead of digging around in a bag for the right one. It won't be one that I carry around with me for a project on the go. And, Yes it's yet another P.O.T.S. (Plastic Organizer ThingieS) but one that I'll hopefully actually use. If not I'll put it back out on the Free Table.

I like the idea of the two-sided doors too. I'll have to fill it up and show how it looks.  It seems like it will hold a lot of different size/shapes of spools which is a good feature. 

Also seen above another of my favorite batting Hobbs 80/20 fusible that I just bought to replace the last one I used earlier this year for both my SAT 25 piece, Our Mistake and Sky Structure, made for the Sister Artists auction.