Finishing the Pink Chevron Quilt!

For all of you that have been following along with my progress on the Pink Chevron Quilt, I'm proud to report that I buckled down this weekend and got it completely finished.  Now I can get it out in the mail so that it arrives by my sister's due date in February!

This week my main job was finishing the binding.  Binding seems like it should be a very straightforward business, but there are still plenty if decisions to be made at this stage.  Fabric choices, binding width, straight grain or bias binding all need to be decided on.

Before even beginning this quilt I knew that I wanted to complete it with rounded corners.  It really would have looked good either way, but I like the mix of soft edges with the straight chevrons.

I also love how the backing turned out.  I tend to do a lot of pieced backings because I love the look, and also because I don't tend to have yardage in my stash.  I think that pieced backings are where thrift and design mingle. :)

Cutting Corners:

Since I chose rounded corners, I had to make bias binding.  Straight grain doesn't like to curve around corners.  Because of this, I didn't have enough of the original fabric that I had chosen for the binding :(  Oh well, plan B!  I had more than plenty of the white on black dot fabric to make binding so it all worked out just fine :)

I was surprised that a few of my quilting friends told me that they would be nervous about making curved corners on their quilts.  I totally understand this fear.  It's nerve racking to hack off a corner of your nearly finished quilt.  But, fear not!  It's really fairly easy and you don't need special tools that you don't already have.



1. Find a bowl with a pleasing diameter and place it on the edge of your squared-up quilt.



2. Trace the curve on all four corners.



3. Cut on the traced line.

See :) No worries.  It's easy.

The other worry my buddies had was binding the curve.  For some reason, this strikes fear into the hearts of some quilters because they don't want to end up with puckers and wobbly or cupped corners.  With just a little extra care curved corners can be pucker and wobble free no matter if you are hand finishing or machine finishing your binding.

Binding the Curve

1. When sewing on your curved binding it is very important not to stretch it around the curve.  Don't yank it or pull it in place because this will cause your quilt edges to cup.  Gently lay the binding flat around the curved edges while you sew.

Next you have to flip your binding to the back side in order to sew it down.  There are lots of good ways to do this, but for curves I use the glue method.  You can buy basting glue in most quilting shops, but washable school glue works just as well for this method.

2.  Place a line of glue inside of the stitch line from where you sewed on the binding.  Lay the binding over it making sure it covers the stitches and lightly press it down with a hot iron.



This method is great for getting perfectly flat corners and does not damage your quilt at all.  If you mess up, no worries, just pull the pieces apart and re-glue.



Now all you need to do is either hand or machine stitch your binding down and you are finished.  The glue will come out completely in the wash.

I hope that you've enjoyed this post and got a few tips that will help you in the future.  If you want to see more about the glue binding method, I recommend you watch this video by Sharon Schambers.  She has a lot of great videos on quilting that will blow your mind!

I will be doing one more post relating to this quilt next week.  I'm really excited about it and *hint* it has something to do with the label :)