Matching fabrics and preparing binding

Today during lunch my goal was to find a backing fabric, border fabric and batting for the tree skirt that is underway. I took two of my completed coasters with me to Hobby Lobby to help me in matching the process. For the backing and binding I ended up choosing a red fabric with white polka dots, and for the backing a white fabric with green and red Christmas trees. For the batting I choose a type called natural and warm. For the batting I decided to buy extra for fear that I'd calculated my finished piece size incorrectly. As for the binding and border I knew based on the Missouri Quilt video I needed at least 15 inches for the border and so I believe I decided on 25 inches worth to ensure I had the right amount of it for the border and binding.

When I got home I cut out my border pieces and attached them as instructed in the video. The method they used to have all the borders be straight edges was a blessing! So easy. Next I had to take the backing fabric, batting and tree skirt and pin them together for quilting.

Last week my fantastic quilting teacher had shown me how to use a large piece of cardboard (mine was left over from a large piece of furniture we'd purchased) to secure your backing fabric right side down with pins to ensure it was as tight as possible. After getting the backing secured I needed to lay down the batting. The type I bought was having static cling to everything it touched so the hubby helped me lay it out on the backing fabric. Next we laid out the skirt top an I was able to begin pinning. I pinned the outer border and then squares within. I saw one video in my research that says you should have pins one fist apart from each-other, but there was no way I was going to spend the time putting a pin in all 64 squares. I think I had 24 all together.

After pinning I cut the excess patting and binding down to .5 inches from the edge of the border. This helped a lot when I started quilting. For my Table Runner I had all the excess batting still attached which made it hard to maneuver in the sewing machine. I quilted four areas using stitch 29 again (I think it's my favorite). I used silver rayon thread and did the stitching at speed two. Another great tip my quilting instructor taught me was with the Rayon strings the need room to move and if you put them where your normal spool goes they'll tighten up and potentially your string will break mid sew. So I did what she showed me, I got a coffee cup from the kitchen put the spool in it and in wound a little to release the tension and then set it up in my upper threader. This worked great! I was quilted the border, and 3 inside block sets as you'll see in the photos. I figured this would give good definition on the skirt top and bottom.

After all the quilting was done I cut my binding. I had five strips of about 40 inches each, I sewed the ends together and ironed them in half and finally called it a night.

Border sewed on, ready to meet the backing fabric and batting.

Close up of Skirt Top prior to pinning

Cardboard where I laid out and pinned all three pieces and then cut to size.

Backing Fabric

All three layers pinned together ready to quilt.

Closeup of the Top Stitching in Silver Rayon Thread

Closeup of backing, to show fabric as well as under stitching, if you look closely you'll see the 4 areas that were quilted.

Gifts Galore!

Most of today was spent enjoy football, food, and the company of our friends. However, this evening I took some time to do a few quick quilting projects. 

As I mentioned yesterday evening, I wanted to make the Tissue Holder that was featured on the Riley Blake Designs website. To do this all you need is 3 pieces of 4 by 6 inch fabric. To make the tissue holder you form it inside out, then sew around the outside and invert to have your Right Sides showing. This was really quick and looks way cuter than carry around a plastic stash of klennex. I plan to make a few more of these, likely one with the peacock fabric, and the others from different fabrics I have a good amount of. 

Completed holder, showing tissue inside :)

Completed Holder Closed

Once completing this little project (less than 15 minutes!) I decided to see if I could reverse engineer my coffee coaster from yesterday to use less material. The Riley Blake Design pattern for the coffee coaster/hot pads calls for 5 squares of equal size, one square is your backing, and then the other 4 are ironed in half, and when you sew it together and invert it only 1/2 of each fabric still shows... this lead me to wonder if you really needed the underside of fabric. So I took the corners that I had cut off my Christmas Tree Skirt and used the seam ripper to borrow the 1/2 triangle squares then I cut down the 5 inch corner square to the size of the 2 half triangles (because they were cut just over 1/4 inch they weren't a full 5 inches together). Once I had this done I laid the fabrics the same way requested by the original pattern, but I did Wrong Sides up so when I inverted the Right Sides would come through. The results were just ok. In the original design the middle points of the fabrics meet but aren't sewn together which looks fine, but with this there was a good amount of gap, so I took my hand at sewing a few extra lines in to hold down the middle better.  The coaster turned out to be usable, but I wouldn't do this for future coasters, the original way was better. 

What I consider the Top

Bottom of Coaster

Once this was complete I decided to go back to the original pattern;  I had 15 charm squares left from my Mr. Claus set I'd ordered for the Christmas Tree Skirt, so I ended up using them to create 3 more coasters to go with the one I completed last night. 

Complete Set, Fronts of Each. To get the centers to meet I ended up pinning them and then sewing the outer border. 

Two Fronts, Two Backs. The Merry Christmas Fabric is on the back of all 4, 2 are Red, 2 are Green. It was the only fabric that required it go a specific direction so I figured I'd match it. 

So far that's what I've done for the evening, I might try a few more things but we'll see. I'll be sure to update if I do!

10 Minute project!

Quilted coaster! So easy to make, take 5 charms, iron 4 in half, stack on top of batting, sew around all corners, clip corners, turn inside out, and sew new border and tada you're done!!

Learned it from Riley Blake Designs Website Tutorials, you can find it here.

Front Side

Back Side