Mitered Self-Binding with Fleece

I finished my quilts for a friend. I talked about the piecing of these quilts in THIS POST.

Now I'm going to discuss how I finished these quilts.

When I had completed the quilting, I started pondering how to bind the quilt. I decided that I did not want to use a regular quilting cotton for the binding on an all-fleece quilt. I ALSO did not want to have those bulky seams from fleece in the binding.

I decided to use the backing and do a self-binding.

I found a way to do this that worked out quite well. Here's how it was done:

Cut off all the excess backing except for 1" all around.







When you get to the corners, you want to cut 1" chunk out of each of the corners.

When I did this myself, I didn't pin it, but I'm pinning it now, to show you each step.

First, Fold in the corners like this:


Then fold the sides down a 1/2" (in half) making them level with the quilt's raw edge.

Then fold down the folded edge again over the quilt.

Take a needle and thread and hand-stitch this corner together.

Once the edges are sewn, I buried the threads inside the quilt.

I did all the corners first and pinned those down, and then

I folded the rest of the edges down just the same.


I'll post a pic of the finished quilts in a bit! ;c)

Minky is the Devil!!!

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit but it sure feels like Minky is out to get me!! LOL

For the last couple weeks I have been working with Minky. There is no point in trying to clean it up because the mess just keeps making babies and accumulating all over the place!!!

So my friend has commissioned me to make her two quilts that utilized her grandmothers old house robes. There are 3 robes that are made out of a print fleece. She and I mapped out a design and I graphed it out and we ordered complimentary fabrics to go with it.

I'll admit that before I started these fleece projects I've never felt quality fleece before. It's definitely that fabric that just says "KEEP TOUCHING ME" LOL. But it is a BITCH to sew! So some of the fabrics ordered were Minky, and I'm telling you it is EVERYWHERE!!!

Since fleece is stretchy, I decided to use Freezer Paper to keep its shape while I worked. I cut out the pieces of freezer paper based on my graph (1block=1inch) then ironed it to the back of the fabric. I then cut out 1/2" seam allowance around the fabrics with my rotary cutter.






Now, as you can see. . . as you cut out the MINKY, it leaves this residue in the grooves of my cutting mat!! This stuff is VERY DIFFICULT to get out - but what I found did the best was just taking a scrap piece of cotton fabric and rubbing it off.

This WAD of fluff is just the stuff I pulled out of the cutting mat from JUST the CREAM minky. . LOL

I sewed them all together. . . the freezer paper really helped. I did have a bit of trouble squeezing the seam allowances through the machine. ..AND it's almost impossible to match the seams perfectly ;c) But since I"m a brilliant genius. . We are going to FINISH these quilts and they are going to be amazing. I'll keep ya posted!


Click HERE to see finished quilt!