Extra Sewing Tips

Narelle said that "she would liked to have seen how the finish looked on the back of the binding" that I previously posted about.....well Narelle here it is;

This is a placemat that I worked on yesterday. The first photo shows how I turn the binding over to the back and pin in place ready for hand sewing. You will see that the corner is shaped to fold a mitre;

In this case, to work quickly, I did a slip stitch around the binding...you can see in the photo that the mitre has been sewn in by slip stitching up the fold and then bringing the needle back down to continue sewing. Note that my slip stitches are "just" below the seam allowance line. If I have time, I often to do a blind hemming stitch as the stitches are almost invisible.

This photo shows the finished corner and edges.

I thought you might also like to see how I quilted this place mat...here are the evenly spaced quilting lines;

To get this result I used 0.25in Quilters Removable Tape;

I used my Quilters Ruler to create a grid across the placemat and, as I went I stuck a piece of tape down alongside the rulers edge. Note how I have extended the tape beyond the edges;

then; I lifted the extended pieces of tape, turned them over to the back and stuck them down to hold the top, the wadding and the backing together......

I marked each tape with an arrow to indicate where I needed to sew to keep the even grid, then used my walking foot and sewed close to each tape edge from top to bottom....

You're finished....just peel all the tape off.....save it because you can use it a few more times. I wrap mine around a glass bottle.

Now isn't that an easy way to quilt a small item....no pins, no basting...just careful "sticking"!