I'm Quite Biased

Preparing to teach binding to Tuesday evening's Stitchin' Mission class means I had to get the lead out. What does that expression mean!?

For me it meant I had to get my quilt quilted so I have a quilt to demonstrate how to sew binding to a quilt!

The quilting design is easy free-motion quilted loopy-loops,

alternating directions from each 6" X 6" block to the next.

The binding strips are joined with diagonal seams, pressed and ready to sew to the quilt.

Since I was already joining strips to make binding, I moved onto another project... sewing together bias strips to make vines for the borders of my Periwinkle Star quilt.

Appliqueing borders for a quilt, either by hand or machine, is a totally new experience for me. I'm well onto border two of four.

Appliqued vines, flowers and leaves look like this. The "flowers" are the Periwinkle Star block with an appliqued center.

I'm sewing Celtic bar vines because they appear sort of "stuffed" when appliqued. That look goes well with the flower centers which are slightly raised by a piece of batting sewn inside.

The vine looks stuffed because the seam allowance is on the back.

To make Celtic bias vine the fabric is sewn wrong sides together. After the excess seam allowance is trimmed away, to about 1/8 inch, a 1/4-inch metal Celtic bar is inserted into the tube (plastic bars don't make as crisp of an edge). The seam is centered on the bar and pressed.

This is nearly eight yards of bias vine, so it took a while to slide the metal bar through the tube.

Pressed, it's wrapped onto an old ribbon spool, and ready for appliqueing.

I like Celtic bar bias because: 1) the seam is unseen; 2) the edges don't move as I'm appliqueing; and 3) the vine has a slightly raised look. It works for me!