FREE TUTORIAL: Adding a decorative flange border

Hi peeps!

Today I'd like to share my method for adding a flange border to the outside edges of a quilt. Note: this is just the way I do it, you may have your own method of doing this.

I am using the Layer Cake Lemonade from Fat Quarter Shop quilt top I demo-ed in this post.

Measure the four edges of your quilt and cut enough 1"-wide strips to go all the way around, with a good half yard extra. I cut 6 x WOF x 1" strips and had about a half yard long strip extra at the end.

Piece your strips together on the diagonal, like you would for piecing binding strips together. Trim excess fabric from the joined ends, making sure to leave about a quarter inch seam allowance. Piecing the strips on the diagonal will reduce bulk once you have pressed the long skinny strip in half.

Press your seams open. I leave the little tags poking out so it is easier for my chubby fingers to separate the seam allowance! 

I think I need to make a new ironing board cover...

Press the long strip in half, width-wise. As you can see, the seam allowance faces in two directions, eliminating the bulk in the skinny strip once it is folded.

Fold the long, folded strip in half, lengthwise and push a safety pin through the two ends. Sorry, blurry..one-handed photo!

Lay your quilt on the floor(carpeting works a charm here!). Pin the safety pin into the carpet pile(I actually press the pin into the foam underlay, just don't tell the Hubs!), making sure that the strips line up with the edge of the quilt top.

Gently lay the flange strips down the middle of the quilt top. Make sure to pull the flange strips slightly so that there are no excess bends or loops in the strips.

Trim both pieces at the same time so your quilt sides will be equal.

Do the same thing through the width of the quilt.

Starting down the right side, pin a flange strip end to the top and bottom corners, raw edges to the outer side. The folded edge of the flange strip should be facing the centre of the quilt top.

Fold the quilt top in half, top to bottom and mark the center point with a pin. Do the same with the flange strip. Match both center points and pin together. Next comes my least favourite part…get down on the floor and pin/clip the raw edges of the flange strip to the outside edge of the quilt top. Oh, my knees!!!

You may have to ease the quilt top edge (or the flange strip) in a little to make the end edges meet. I know I did!

Do the same for the left side.

Now comes sewing the flange to the quilt top. I like to set my needle one click to the right, so that I am sewing less than a quarter inch from the edge. 

This is important as when you go to sew the final border on with a true quarter inch seam, your flange seam will not show. I learnt this through trial and error!

Gratuitous sewing shot. I love, love my Clover Clips!!!

Now pin/clip your a flange strip to the top edge, again folding your quilt top and flange strip in half. Pin at each end and match up and pin your centres. Pin and ease in excess fabric, as needed.

Sew, sew sew!!!

Once you are done sewing the four flanges on, it is time to head on over to the cutting board. Trim off any loose fabric threads and the little points where you joined your flange strips together. This is especially important if you have chosen an outer border fabric that is light in colour. Everything will show through.

This only takes 5 minutes, but boy is it ever worth it.

Press your quilt top from the back. This will set your stitches and flatten any bumps/bulges that may have occurred…ahem...

Now, turn your quilt top over to the front and press well. This will give your flange border a crisp knife-edge.

Ta-da!!!

You are done!

I hope you enjoyed my first-ever tutorial. Stay tuned for a tutorial on the Two Brothers border technique!

Please do comment and share with your friends. Feel free to pin to Pinterest.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Jacqueline

Welcome: Sponsor Sunday!

Hi Peeps!

My generous sponsor, Fat Quarter Shop has lots of sales going on right now. Did you know that they have OVER 700 items alone in their sale section???

I could do some serious damage to the Hubs' credit card, for sure! Yikes!!!

All you have to do is click the Fat Quarter Shop button on my left sidebar to be instantly connected.

They also have a page of links to FREE quilting patterns offered by various fabric manufacturers. You can find it here.

Today's 24 hour Flash Sale focuses exclusively on US College Spirit fabrics. They are on sale for a whopping 40% off, which makes them only $4.30 a yard!

The August 1st post on the Jolly Jabber(FQS's blog) was for their FREE Wishes BOM. This month's block is Mrs. Taft's Choice and is super easy! 

Here's the link.

They are holding a fundraiser for the Make a Wish Foundation, and have raised over $60,000 of a hopeful $100,000, so far. If you can, please donate to help these kids. You can find the info at the above link.

This is such a cute block. I love, love the Wishes by Sweetwater fabric line.

Paper Pieces has their weekly sale up and running today.

They have 20% off some of their great English Paper Piecing books. I am going to grab this book I've been wanting for a looong time!

You can sign up for their weekly newsletter here. They offer a weekly special, info on new items and sometimes free patterns.

Don't forget, you can purchase the sale books and still use the "qsh20" coupon code for the rest of your purchases! 

You can click through the button on my left sidebar to get to the store directly!

You all know I love Massdrop and Aurifil thread. Well this is the newest Aurifl 'drop'. You get 12 large spools of Aurifil 50-weight thread in all neutral colours.

There are two great collections to choose from. The above is Mark Lipinski's choice. Pat Sloan also has a nice collection. Regularly priced at $130.00. The box will be $79.99 plus shipping(which, as I recently found out is very reasonable!). 

They are priced at $84.99 now, but if you 'commit' to join(you will find it under the green JOIN button), then you will get the lower price. I did this with a computer wrist bar last week.

Use the below link to join this awesome deal!!! Then just search: Aurifil thread.

https://www.massdrop.com/r/Q2XSMW

Only 5 days left!

I hope you have enjoyed this summary of sales going on. I plan to have Sponsor Sunday on a regular basis.

A flange border tutorial is coming next post.

Please feel free to comment and share with your friends!

Thanks so much for reading and have a great day!

Jacqueline

Showcase Saturday-Layer Cake Lemonade!

Hi peeps!

Today's post is brought to you by the generous folks at Fat Quarter Shop. They sent me this layer cake so I could do up a little demo of their Layer Cake Lemonade pattern. 

The link for the pdf pattern is here. 

They also have a great video on Youtube, which you can find here.

I chose the Mixed Bag layer cake as I thought the colours looked fresh and summery.

I did as the pattern suggests and separated my squares into two piles, one dark and one light.

 It turns out that you will have a few extra if you have a 42-piece layer cake, so if you were wanting to purchase a bali 40-piece one, you would still have enough squares to make the pattern.

I just tossed my completed rows on the floor as I was piecing them. I think they look like a happy mess!

I laid my finished rows on the floor(no room for a design wall), and played around with them a bit. I do admit that I took one of the skinny rows apart, and changed things up a bit. But that I just me being a Virgo!!!

These are my leftovers. I will use some of them to make cornerstones on my added border.

Here are the fabrics I will use for the borders(this is something I am adding, and not in the pattern). The orange will be a narrow 1/4" flange, then Kona-snow. The binding is a Caryl Bryant print from my 'old' stash!

This is the backing fabric I have chosen. The green binding will show nicely on this print.

Here is the completed quilt top, per the pattern. I will talk in greater length about adding a flange border in a later post.

I was on such a roll that I even got the binding pieced and pressed! I had to cut it a 2 3/8" as I only had about 5/8ths of a yard. As you can see by the little strip left, I had barely enough! Now I have another strip for my string quilt bag!

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Jacqueline

Fun Finds at the Dollar Store, and Giveaway Winner(s)!

Hi peeps!

I had some fun at the 'good' Dollar Store recently, though I have to admit that our Dollar Stores up here are actually $1.25 stores!!! 

I needed a container to fit my arriving-any-minute Clover Clips. I ordered 2 x 100-pack, so was thinking I needed a largish box to with them in. Got 3 small rolls of Washi tape too!(The box I bought was way too huge, so I found another in the house. The above box now holds my extra 1" hexagon papers!)

I got this 10-pack of slide-seal freezer bags as I am wanting to make the below bag. At $1.25, they were a steal, compared to the Zip bags I have in my kitchen drawer. As these come from the Dollar Store, I wouldn't use them for food storage, who knows what they are really made of.

The tutorial calls for 6 bags, and I am planning to make two-one for my EPP supplies and one for my embroidery stuff. I plan to only use 4 bags for the EPP one as I think 6 will make it too bulky. Six bags are fine for my embroidery stuff(minus my larger hoop).

Got some Happy Mail!! I am really impressed with the calibre of packaging on my first purchase from Massdrop. My Clover Clips were in a nice, sturdy box with a clearly readable label. The shipping costs were VERY reasonable for something shipped to Canada from the States.

WOW!!! This is the latest Massdrop deal:

Aurifil 12-weight thread, 10 small spools ONLY $29.99!! Regular price $50!!!

Use the below link to join this awesome deal!!! Great for quilting and machine-embroidery.

https://www.massdrop.com/r/Q2XSMW

I love how these Clover clips look like candy! They will come in sooo handy when I tackle sewing the plastic bags into my Busy Bags!

And now for the giveaway…drumroll please..ta-da!!!

The winner of the $35 Gift Certificate to Fat Quarter Shop is:

Saskia S.!

I have emailed her and hope she gets back to me soon!!!

Thank you so much to my sponsor, Fat Quarter Shop. We have other things in the works, coming soon!

I was thinking that having only one winner wasn't fair, gotta pick one more, please, Mr. Hubs!!(I had him pick two numbers between 1 and 24)

I will be sending a 6-pack of craft clips, and four spools of Connecting Threads' Essential thread to:

Debbie C.!

I had to email her via her YouTube account, as it was the only way to get a hold of her!

The above gifts are not sponsored, just a little prezzie from me!

Please remember, if I can't reach you, you can't win!

I just want to thank everyone that follows this blog and those who entered my giveaway. There will be more in store!!!

Quilty love and huggs,

Jacqueline

A FINISH, A VISIT AND A GIVEAWAY!!!

Hi peeps!

How bout this giant pile of scrappy hexies??? These are the 3,800 basted hexies, plus(not shown) the 200+ half-hexies and four quarter hexies(for the corners). They are all basted and ready to be sewn together for the kid's king- sized quilt. I got them done in record time-about three months!

My oldest son came to visit us last week from Montreal, where he is a Grad student. Mom is so, so proud of her two accomplished boys! Can you tell I had a nasty migraine in this photo??? grrr…put a damper on the visit for sure.

I would like to welcome Fat Quarter Shop as a new blog sponsor! They are a huge online quilting fabric store out of Texas, run by the lovely Kimberly Jolly. They specialize in high quality, name-brand fabric lines, books and notions especially for quilters.

Every day, they have an item(or, often items) on sale for a fraction of their retail value, for 24 hours only, starting at 10 AM, Central. Each day is a different item, so if you see something you'd like, you have to pounce on it before it is gone, gone, gone!

They have a weekly newsletter which allows you to keep up with their many awesome sales and new items. There are often a few fabric lines priced at 40% off, and even 50% off! The sale section is humungeous and I would have no trouble filling a cart there! hee hee hee

They also have a blog, called the Jolly Jabber, which offers giveaways, videos and loads of free patterns. I am following along with their Wishes BOM program and will be buying the Wishes Fat Eight pack next payday!

I am sure by now you have all heard of the Cotton & Steel fabric line. It is brand new and all over blog-land. Fat Quarter Shop has all the fabrics available individually, but I am most drawn to the above kit as I love the rainbowyness(great word, eh?) of it! The fabrics are well-dyed and have a lovely feel.

The folks at Fat Quarter Shop have generously offered a follower of this blog a $35.00 gift certificate to the shop…isn't that great? And it's international, too!

So, here's the rules:

1. You have to be a follower of this blog, either via email or Bloglovin, and comment to tell me so.

2. In the same comment, tell me which pre-cut bundle is your favorite at Fat Quarter Shop(you can just click on the FQS button, top left border of this page, and then find a bundle you like the most).

Please note, both points must be answered for a chance to win this giveaway.

One comment per person, please.

Giveaway ends on Wednesday July 30, 2014

Good luck everyone!

Giveaway has been awarded. Thanks for participating!

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Jacqueline

Some sad news...

Hi peeps…

Sunday was not the greatest day for us; it was cold and just poured rain...

I had to take Gracie, my baby-cat, to the Vet, and put her down. She had had a UTI a few months ago, and never really recovered. She was not able to make it to the litter box at all and my dear Hubs had been cleaning up after her the last few weeks. We decided on Sunday that it was time. 

My Hubs is a soft-hearted soul and could not be in the room for the injections, but I stayed with her and petted her while the deed was done. She breathed her last and her little brave heart stopped beating while I rubbed and scratched her shoulders(she used to love that). Believe me when I tell you that tears are streaming down my cheeks as I type this. I just needed to share our pain...

By pure coincidence, our neighbour knocked on the back door with a freshly-caught crab for us! He had caught 15, but had to throw a few back as they were too small. It is so great to be living just an hour away from the Pacific Ocean!

Here is George, our other cat, surveying the still-live crab. He was a bit wary!

Needless to say, we are still a little down-in-the-dumps about losing Gracie, but she is now over the Rainbow Bridge with other pets.

I still feel like a murderer…

Huggs, you guys…

Jacqueline