Welcome IAQ members!

I'm a guest designer for the International Association of Quilters! If you are not familiar with the IAQ, it's an online subscription membership quilting group.  The group hosts online quilt alongs, forums, monthly guest designers and an archive of past IAQ patterns.  It's rather like an online guild. You can hop over to its website for more information.

As November's guest designer, I am pleased to welcome members of the IAQ today.  If you are here from the IAQ, welcome.  I hope you will stay and explore a little bit, get to know my quilts, and perhaps check out a few tutorials.  Also, remember to download your Night Sky Mystery block for November.

Variable Starburst block

Since the mystery quilt theme is the night sky, I felt I really should design a star block.  That's right up my alley. Perhaps being married to an astronomer has influenced me, but I love star blocks.  If you browse this blog or check out my Etsy pattern shop, you'll find just a few star themed quilts.

The block you see above is what I finally settled on.  I used light, medium and dark values of one color, but I encourage you to use this block to play with value and color placement.  Mix up the value placement.  Try different colors.  Try different textures, or maybe mixing different colours rather than multiple values of a single one.

I use EQ8 to design, and it lets me try out different options easily.  I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.  I can make major changes or just little tweaks for multiple iterations of a designs.  I love being able to consider so many options, but it can also be a huge time sink! Just one more minute for one more little tweak, just to see what happens, can turn into hours. I thought you might like a peek into that world.  Enjoy some of my EQ sketches below, showing just some of the possibilities.

First up, a layout with multiple versions of the variable starburst block. Notice how different value placement emphasizes different parts of the star.

The next few pairs of images each use just one coloring of the block, but set with sashing (left image) and without sashing (right image).

I find it fascinating to see how dark and light draw the eye to different features.  I love even more what happens when I set the blocks side by side without sashing.  It's interesting to see how secondary patterns emerge, and how even those secondary patterns have a different look based on value placement. In some of them I even feel the star becomes the secondary element as I see strings of diamonds and triangles first, or overlapping blocks on point.

Just to mix things up a bit, the quilt I designed for this month's IAQ pattern (exclusive to the IAQ for a time) didn't use these layouts at all!

Triple Sunset. Designed, pieced and quited by Joanne Kerton, Canuck Quiter Designs

I enjoyed a beautiful fall day yesterday for a Triple Sunset photo shoot.  Come back soon to see more pictures and read about where the name came from.

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Reindeer block

Tomorrow evening I am teaching a class on making a quilt-as-you-go, fully lined Christmas stocking. Since my two mostly-grown children have finally come around to the idea of having new stockings (the old ones are getting fragile) I thought I could start theirs as the step outs for the class, and finish them after.  One of the options for the class is to build around a block or fussy cut piece of fabric so I needed a block.  I checked with the kids to find out what they would each like on their stocking.

I should know better.  Wording matters.  I asked "would you like a snowflake or a star or something else?"  That is what is called, in education speak, an open ended question. If I had asked "Is a star block OK?" I would probably be making a star block.  I didn't ask that.  I left the field wide open and that's how I ended up spending all afternoon making this instead.

Paper pieced reindeer block.  Pattern by Piece by Number Quilts.

This is a 6" block which means those antlers are teeny tiny.  Here is the block again, with a quarter for scale reference.

Paper pieced reindeer block.  Pattern by Piece by Number Quilts.

To be fair, the one who asked for a reindeer did backpedal when he saw my face, saying if a reindeer was too much trouble then a snowflake, or even the star, would be "fine".  However, once he had suggested the reindeer I wanted to rise to the challenge and I browsed online for a suitable pattern..  While I was working on the antlers I started questioning my choice.  The pattern by Piece By Number Quilts includes foundations for a 12" block or a 6" block.  It is well designed, but if I made it again, I'd go for the 12" one!  Of course then it wouldn't fit on the stocking.

I think the reindeer turned out pretty well.  I wish I had used red thread, because the stitches show a little where I had to press seams open between sections, but I don't think anyone but me will quibble about it when it's hanging on the mantle at Christmas.

This was going to be a two-sided Christmas stocking, with a block on each side so the stocking could hang facing either left or right.  I'll see how I feel about it after supper, but right now I'm betting this will be a one-sided affair.

Machine Binding Tutorial

Binding my quilts by machine used to intimidate me, and I was not satisfied with the results.  I was more consistent about missing the binding on the blind side than I was about stitching it down, and I figured it was just easier and tidier for me to sew the back of the binding down by hand.  However, though my speed has improved, I'm still a slow hand sewer. When projects with deadlines started piling up, I decided I needed to start practicing machine binding.

Binding for Triple Sunset

After watching and reading multiple tutorials and tips and tricks posts over the last year, keeping some tips and discarding others, I finally have a process that works for me.  I'll share it here and encourage you to do what I did: use the bits that work for you and leave the rest

I like to use 2 1/4" binding strips folded in half, sewn to the front of the quilt with a 1/4" seam allowance, just like I do when I hand sew the binding.  This gives me a finished binding that looks more like hand sewn binding on the front of the quilt. I shared how I attach the binding to the front in my previous post.

Binding sewn to the front of the quilt

Next, I press the binding away from the quilt top.  Why did I not know this before?  This helps even when hand binding.  It makes the fabric lie in the right direction on the front, so when I'm folding it to the back, it isn't pulling, wanting to go back to lie flat against the front.

The binding miters itself at the corner as I iron the binding away from the quilt center, and I press that too with the tip of my iron to help the miter keep its shape when I manipulate the binding on the back of the corner later.

Next I fold the binding to the back.  I used to pin it in place, but take a look at the picture below.

See how the edge of the binding curves into a little scallop between the pins?  That's why my line of stitching didn't stay a nice even distance from the edge when I sewed from the front.  The edge wasn't straight.  I think it also contributed to the stitching dropping off the binding and onto the quilt backing in spots.

Many quilters swear by washable school glue instead of pins to hold down the binding for sewing, but honestly, I just made a mess of it.  If you love it, use it.  If you haven't tried it, go ahead and see if it works for you.  I tried it, chose to skip it and moved on to Wonder Clips.

At this point I will confess that I used to roll my eyes when quilters raved about Wonder Clips.  Wasn't that just another unnecessary tool taking up my fabric budget?  Now that I have used them I wish I could tell my previous self not to wait so long to try them. (And no, I have not been paid, or given free products, or had any contact at all with Clover to entice me to write this.  I just love the clips!)

Notice that I put the flat side of the clip on the back of the binding, on the back of the quilt.  I stitch from the front side, so the flat part is against the bed of the machine as I sew.  When I come to a clip, I push down on the top to open the clip to remove it, and that flat part just slides out and away without catching and disturbing the binding.

I know what you're thinking about all those clips!  Well, maybe not all of you, but some of you, I'm sure. Why don't you space them out a little bit more?

When I space them out too much they don't keep the fabric where I want it and my stitching slips off the binding.  Rather, my stitching is right where it is supposed to be but the binding is not.  So, I clip closely together.  It really doesn't take that long, and I get better results so I'm going with it!

You may also be wondering how many clips I own to get all around a quilt.  I bought the pack of 50 clips and that's plenty.  I just don't clip around the whole quilt all at once.  I use all the clips, start sewing, pause when only a few clips remain, clip the next stretch of binding, and continue this way until I have bound the entire perimeter.

To miter the corner on the back, I start by folding the binding on one side all the way to the corner, keeping the folded width even all the way.  It will naturally make a 45 degree fold at the end/corner.  I finger press this fold to help it keep its shape.  You could give it a quick press if your iron was close at hand.

Next I fold the top edge of the binding down, using my finger (you could use a stiletto) to make the corner crease in line with the raw edge of the quilt.

As I fold the top edge down, I bring the point of the finger pressed corner fold down to meet the edge of the side binding.

I clip that corner in place.  If the iron is close at hand I might give it a quick press first.

Moving on to the sewing part, let me introduce my good friend, the stitch-in-the-ditch presser foot. If you can find one for your machine, I highly recommend it.

The metal guide tucks right up against the high side of the "ditch" and the needle comes down right behind the guide, stitching right next to the high side of the seam.  Using it for binding, I tuck it up right beside the binding on the front of the quilt and the needle stitches in the ditch, into the quilt top close to the binding.

Here's what that stitching looks like on the front..

To turn the corner, I keep stitching until the needle is tucked into the corner, but not on the binding, stopping with the needle down.

Keeping the needle down, I lift the presser foot and pivot the quilt to bring the metal guide on the foot into line with the next side of the binding.  I then continue sewing.

I keep going until I reach the point where I started.  I stitch a few stitches past that, then backstitch a few stitches to secure the stitching.  That's it!

I still have wobbles now and then, especially at the corners, but overall this process gives me a tidy,  straight stitching line on the back of the binding, and a front that looks similar to what I would get if I hand stitched the back.

If you have any binding tips to add, please share in the comments!