Tags
backing, batting, binding, farmer's wife, farmer’s wife quilt, Laurie Hird, quilt, top, turquoise
A big quilting project comes to a close: my Farmer’s Wife quilt. Someone asked me the other day how long it took me. I said I didn’t know but I guessed it could be a whole year. Now, I have looked it up in my blog chronicles, and to my surprise I started out on this journey more than two years ago. In March 2012, I posted about the first square, Wrench. Little did I know that it would take me that long to finish it. But that is exactly what happened today.
I finished the quilting a couple of days ago. As mentioned before, I played with the thought of not binding the quilt at all. I have only done this once before, on a very small wall hanging. But this technique has nothing to do with size. It is rather simple, and I will quickly describe it here.
For this method, it is essential that you do not quilt up to the edge, but stop at least half an inch before it.
After all quilting is done, I cut the three layers evenly with a ruler and rotary cutter. Then I took some scissors and trimmed the batting a quarter of an inch so that top and back stand out.
This is the trickiest part of it because I almost cut the backing fabric several times—or thought that I would. It cost me some nerves. In fact, I found this way too exciting and decided to pin the top and back out of the way to be able to cut the batting of the three other sides without obstacles.
Now, on all four sides, the batting is a quarter of an inch shorter than the top and backing fabric. Next, I folded the protruding part of the top and backing inside, enveloping the batting with the backing fabric. I pinned it and then sewed it with an invisible stitch by hand.
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And I am very pleased with the result of no binding. See a picture of the whole quilt here.
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