Ready for next week

I worked on piecing backs and batting today.

My stash is pretty extensive but I have NO 30’s fabrics so finding a backing and a binding that works with this donated top was a challenge. Finally found a yard of a solid blue for the binding and a blue flannel print for the backing.

After all my hard work … I’ve got 4 ready to go. Three of them have pieced batting … and I’ve still got more batting pieces to use up. I figure that for every 3 tops I quilt, I can a free batting from the leftover batting strips and with batting as expensive as it is, that’s a bonus. I zigzag the pieces together on the sewing machine.

I’m knitting now while we watch the Lightning play and after the game I’ll go downstairs and hand stitch another binding.

4 comments

  1. Interesting about the binding piecing – I’ve tried a couple times and always end up with a ridge I don’t enjoy where the two pieces join. My machine doesn’t do zigzag, maybe that’s the issue. Meanwhile I have a growing backlog of binding pieces I need to find a solution for.

    cheers,

    ceci

      • Ceci,
        I have a Longarm, and I just S-L-I-G-H-T-L-Y overlap my batting when joining pieces. Works great, and I can never find the “bump” when I’m finished. I used to hand stitch batting together back in the dark ages ( over 15 years since I’ve had my Longarm) when I machine quilted on my DSM. Have you tried spray-basting your batting just where it joins?Or using a very light fusible cut to about 2” and fuse the pieces once you’ve straightened them a bit? I’ve done that a few times, but find just butting together or overlapping a tiny bit works just as well. Just my experience. I wasn’t happy when I zig-zagged together. I must have stretched the batting because it was ALWAYS distorted when I did that, and the joined area was awful. Batting would never lay flat for me after I zigzagged it. And looked uneven and “odd” in the finished quilt. Again, just my experience. Good luck. Things are so expensive that it feels good to “Frankenstein-Batt” some of those leftover pieces. Have a friend who joins pieces as small as 2”!!! That’s crazy to me. I use those small pieces for dusting. And then just toss them. MANY uses for small pieces of batting if you check online👍👍.

  2. You are such an inspiration. I love the idea of zig zag batting. These days we can benefit from each savings.

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