Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone happiness, good cheer and sweet

surprises for 2010.

Christmas at our house

Christmas is only a couple of days away and we have been busy getting ready for the holidays. This is what Christmas looks like around our house.

The gift of love,

The gift of peace,

The gift of happiness,

May all these be yours this Christmas.

Holiday Special!

I'm so grateful to all the friends I have made through my blog over this past year. It has been an amazing year and very exciting to have shipped my patterns all over the world. With the holiday season upon us I want to show my appreciation by offering free shipping from December 8th to 31st anywhere in the USA or Canada when you order two or more patterns. For all my international customers I am offering free shipping when you order 4 or more patterns.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Come Bind with me!

Welcome to my tutorial on Double Sided Binding. I love this method and I think you will too!

Start with choosing the fabric for the binding that you would like to see on the front of the quilt and then choose the binding fabric that you would like to have on the back of the quilt.

Now measure the perimeter of your quilt. Add 15" to the total. This is how long the completed binding strip needs to be.

From the fabric that you have chosen for the front binding, cut 1" strips to equal the length you need.

From the fabric chosen for the binding for the back of the quilt, cut 2" strips to equal the length you need.

Sew the 2" strips together by laying the ends of the strips over each other right sides together as shown above. Then sew a diagonal line, corner to corner. Cut away the outside corner 1/4" from the sewn line and press.



Now repeat this step for the 1" strips.

Sew the 1" and the 2" strips together as shown above.

Press

Fold the binding strip in half, wrong sides together, as shown above and press.

Square up your quilt. Whenever a quilt is machine quilted, it has a tendency to shift close to the edge and sometimes the straight border edge that you started with moves a little bit. I always square up my quilts with a pencil or very fine fabric marker, measuring from the border seam over to the edge.

This little quilt sample was trimmed. I usually leave about 3" of batting and backing on my quilts when I am binding and then I trim the quilt once the binding is sewn on.

Sew the binding on using a 1/4" seam with the front binding face down on the quilt top as shown above. Align the raw edge of the binding against the pencil line.

Note: Make sure to start in the middle of one of the sides of the quilt and leave a 5" piece of binding at the start.

When you get to the corners, stop 1/4" from the drawn line and fold the binding up as shown above, making sure it's nice and straight, and pin.

Fold the binding straight down and continue sewing the 1/4" seam. Make sure you remove the pin before you start to sew ... you don't want it to get caught up in your machine.

Continue all the way around your quilt until you come close to where you started. Trim the tails so they overlap 2 1/2". I use a small rotary mat -- at 5" by 7" it's the perfect size.

Open the two ends and overlap them. Sew a diagonal line corner to corner. Cut away the outside corner 1/4" from the sewn line and press flat. Continue sewing the binding onto the quilt with a 1/4" seam.

Trim the quilt 3/8" past the sewn line. This will give a nice fullness to the finished binding.

Pin the binding down on the back of the quilt and hand stitch in place. Instead of pins you might like to try using binding clips that can be purchased at most quilt shops.

I hope that you've enjoyed my Double Sided Binding tutorial and that you'll have fun trying this technique!