Merry Mini QAL - Week 5 - Binding

Welcome to week 5 of the Merry Mini QAL! It's the final days of this Christmas in July party! I managed to get caught up last Monday afternoon, stitching my tree rows together and then adding them to my three quilt tops. Then they all just sat until Friday afternoon, when I finally got them all basted. It took less than an hour to baste them all, so why did I keep putting it off???

Saturday morning I started the quilting. I quilted diagonal lines in all the red squares on all three, then lines in all the tree trunks, then more diagonal lines in the green squares and wishbones in the trees.

Though I had thought about quilting the three quilts differently, once I got started I just wanted to keep doing the same thing for all of them. Sometimes it's better to have fewer decisions to make, lol.

For the background, I chose a small loopy meander. Usually I say this design reminds me of eyelet lace, but in this context it makes me think of strands of Christmas lights. The background of each Merry Mini took about 30 minutes to quilt.

As always, the quilting looks so pretty on the back, too.

Over the course of the day, I quilted all the colours for all three minis and the backgrounds of two of them. It definitely didn't take all day, I think I spent about an hour in the morning, another hour or so in the afternoon, and another hour in the evening. Then I finished the third background on Sunday afternoon.

Week 5 - Binding

If you haven't already joined the QAL, there's still a few days to join in for some Christmas in July fun! You can pick up your pattern here. Until the end of July, the Merry Mini pattern is 20% off with the code MERRYMINIQAL, which should already by applied if you click on the link. Once you have your pattern, enter your email address here to have the weekly emails sent to your inbox so you don't miss any of the QAL blog posts.

As a reminder, here's the weekly schedule. Click on the links to go to the previous posts.

July 1 - Make the text block 

July 8 - Make the alternating squares borders

July 15 - Make the tree borders

July 22 - Quilting

July 29 - Binding

The next step after finishing the quilting is to trim off the excess batting and backing. I always love how that simple step transforms the look of a quilt! It looks so much more finished when the edges are clean, even though they're still raw edges.

Some quilters get very particular about making sure their quilts are perfectly square. I'm not one of them. I use my long ruler and my rotary cutter to make sure each side is straight, but I don't fuss about getting perfect 90° angles.

Once the quilt is trimmed, I add my label to the bottom right corner on the back. I got these labels from Finer Ribbon (they've since gone out of business) and there were 1,000 on the roll at the start, so I don't think I'll ever run out.

Hanging the mini quilt

Since this is a mini quilt, we need to think about how it will be displayed. It's likely to be hung on a wall, so how do we want to do that? We could sew a sleeve to put on the back or add triangles to the corners. With either of those options, you use a dowel and nails or hooks on the wall. For the past couple of years, though, I've been using Command strips for small quilts. I started out with the strips designed for hanging posters, but when I ran out of those I started using strips sold as refills for the hooks. This most recent pack that Paul picked up are meant for outdoor use, but they work fine in the house, too.

I attach the strip directly to the back of the quilt in the top corners, then stick them to the wall. After Christmas, follow the instructions to remove the strip from the wall, then just peel it off the quilt. There's no damage to either the wall or the quilt, and no residue left behind.

I've had quilts hanging on my laundry room wall for years using Command strips. A few months ago one of them fell down because the strips weren't sticky enough to hold it anymore, and even after years stuck to the quilt, there was still no residue left behind. I stuck new strips on and hung it back up 😊

Binding

Once upon a time, I was certain that the only correct way to bind a quilt was to sew the binding to the front by machine, then hand stitch it to the back. Anything else was just wrong. Then came a day when I was making something for gifts and didn't have time to hand stitch the binding. This was pre-blog days, so I can't remember for sure, but I think it was a set of minis. Whatever it was, I decided to try machine binding and I was amazed at how quick it was and even more surprised that it didn't look horrible! Not that I did a great job, but that the look of binding finished by machine wasn't the abomination I thought it would be. I quickly made the switch to machine binding all my quilts, and I'm so glad I got out of my 'only one right way' mindset!

Over the years I picked up tips and refined my method, then in 2016 I published a tutorial for how to bind a quilt by machine. I still bind my quilts the exact same way! If you're not yet happy with the results when you bind your quilts by machine, check out the tutorial to see if there's something I do differently that might make a difference for you.

This is one of last year's Merry Minis

Finishing the binding by machine stitching it to the front of the quilt is pretty much the only time I don't always match the bobbin thread to the top thread. I match the top thread to the binding fabric and match the bobbin thread to either the backing fabric or the thread I used for quilting. I want that line of stitching to be as unnoticeable as possible on the back, so I choose whichever one will blend in the most. In the case of the Merry Mini above, you can see I chose a red thread, to match the backing. Of course, the binding is red, too, so for that quilt the top and bobbin threads did match.

My three QAL Merry Minis are sitting and waiting, with their labels clipped on, ready for their bindings. I'm hoping to get them all finished before the calendar flips over to August.

Thanks for joining me for the Merry Mini QAL! I hope you've had as much fun stitching your Merry Mini quilt as I have 😊

My First Quilt with Jenny Kae Parks

It has been a busy July here in Devoted Quilter land, with the Merry Mini QAL and the work I've been doing on other patterns, not to mention starting a new job as a virtual assistant. Whew! No wonder it feels like the last Friday of the month snuck up on me quickly! It is the last Friday of the month, though, which means I get to share another My First Quilt interview 😊 This month Jenny Kae Parks is sharing the story of her first quilt. Jenny Kae Parks is a quilting teacher and designer.

You can connect with Jenny at her website, on Instagram, on Facebook, and on Youtube.

And now, here's Jenny's first quilt! Isn't it pretty?

What year did you make your first quilt? What prompted you to make it?

2021 I made quilted placements for a project with my kids. I fell in love with the possibilities. I dove in and never looked back!

What techniques were used in that first quilt? Did you quilt it yourself?

I made a log cabin quilt using strip piecing.

Who taught you to make the quilt?

Elinor Burns. No lie! I used her VHS lessons on The Log Cabin. Then a friend, Patty and I got together every week to quilt. I learned a lot from her. I used to record Quilt in a Day, Simply Quilts, Love of Quilting etc and watch them when I got time to myself. And I checked out SO many books and magazines!

Are the colours you chose for your first quilt ones you would still choose today?

Yes!  It took few years for me to realize that they were my color trifecta. Almost every quilt I made has blue, purple and green. I have branched out, using the quilter's secret weapon aka the color wheel. 

Did you fall in love with quilting right away? Or was there a gap between making the first quilt and the next one?

I fell hard! I was planning my next quilt while making my first one. 

Where is the quilt now?

It is hanging in my closet. I use it for presentations to guilds.

Is there anything you wish you could go back and tell yourself as you made that first quilt?

Plan more time for quilting! When I have the top done, I am irritated I am not finished yet! So I skimp on the quilting to finish faster. Instead, plan at least 30% of the time is spent on quilting. For example, if it takes me 60 hours to make a quilt top, plan 20 hours to quilt, at least.

Anything else you want to share about your first quilt?

I still love it! I love the colors, the arrangement, the blocks and the feel of the washed quilt. The log cabin is one of my favorite blocks! 

Thanks for sharing your first quilt with us, Jenny! I love it, too!

Merry Mini QAL - Week 4 - Quilting

Welcome to week 4 of the Merry Mini QAL! How is your Merry Mini coming along? I have to admit that this past week I fell behind on my own QAL. I was doing really well, even with three mini quilts underway, but then we decided to go hiking twice this week. No regrets, both hikes were great! It just means that now I have some catching up to do. (And if you'd be interested in seeing some of my hiking pictures, you can follow me on Instagram!)

Even though I don't have my Merry Mini quilt tops finished, I do have all my trees made! I love this little forest.

Week 4 - Quilting

If you haven't already joined the QAL, there's still time to join in for some Christmas in July fun! You can pick up your pattern here. From now until the end of July, the Merry Mini pattern is 20% off with the code MERRYMINIQAL, which should already by applied if you click on the link. Once you have your pattern, enter your email address here to have the weekly emails sent to your inbox so you don't miss any of the QAL blog posts.

As a reminder, here's the weekly schedule. Click on the links to go to the previous posts.

July 1 - Make the text block 

July 8 - Make the alternating squares borders

July 15 - Make the tree borders

July 22 - Quilting

July 29 - Binding

Now that your quilt tops are put together (and mine soon will be, lol), it's time to baste and quilt them! I love mini quilts for a lot of reasons and two of them are that I can use scrap pieces of batting for them and I don't have to piece a back to fit! I can't explain why, but I can put dozens of pieces together for a quilt top no problem, but sewing even two pieces together for a backing seems like too much work. Another bonus - with a mini, basting goes so quickly!

Have you thought about how you'll quilt your Merry Mini? I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to repeat what I did for my first two, or if I'll do something different this time. In case you don't have any ideas yet, here's what I did before. All of this quilting was done on my Janome 6700 with Aurifil 50 wt. thread.

For any quilt with embroidery or applique, the hardest part for me is figuring out how to deal with those elements. Outline them? Stitch over them? It's so hard to choose! Because the Merry Mini letters are so thin, I chose to stitch kind of loosely around them, without outlining each individual letter. I stitched a meander with random snowflakes in the background.

Here's how it looks from the back.

An option I'm considering this time around is to quilt a rectangle frame around the words, separating them from the quilting entirely. Another interesting option, especially if you used fabric markers or crayons for your words rather than stitching, would be to quilt right the whole quilt with an allover motif, going right over the words. Something like a crosshatch, straight lines, or some stippling would look great.

These trees were so much fun to quilt! It doesn't show up well in the pictures, but I used brown thread to stitch back and forth lines in the trunks (that wasn't the fun part), then I switched to green thread to outline the tree and stitch swooping lines to resemble draped garland. I love how they turned out!

Another option would be to stitch back and forth lines in the green part of the tree, too, or wishbones, or to echo the diagonal lines of the sides into the middle. Or maybe join me in getting lost in Pinterest searching for ideas for quilting in triangles (I can't be the only one, right?).

Apparently I didn't take any closeup pictures of the alternating squares rows after the quilting, and I've given these two away, so here's the view from the back. I treated the white squares as part of the background. In the red and green squares, I used matching thread to outline the square, then quilted a swooping line from corner to corner around the square. Yes, that meant starting and stopping in each square individually, but there aren't a lot of them, so it wasn't bad.

These squares are pretty small, but there are still other options - back and forth lines (can you tell they're a standby motif for me?), or maybe just outline the squares and don't quilt anything else in them. They'd stay kind of puffy that way.

I think the Merry Mini would also look great with some big stitch hand quilting, either as an accent along with some machine quilting or with only the hand quilting. I don't feel like taking on any hand quilting over the summer, but maybe some of you with air conditioning will do it so I can admire it.

I hope this post has given you some ideas for how to quilt your Merry Mini! Can you believe next week is the last (partial) week of July, and we'll be ready to move on to binding?

When you share pictures on social media, remember to use the hashtag #MerryMiniQAL and tag me (@devotedquilter on IG and @devotedquilterdesigns on FB) so I can see!