Fancy stitch for binding

SV400033,
originally uploaded by karenechow.

I personally hate hand sewing anything, and I always find that hand sewing the binding always takes a super long time. My mother-in-law suggested that instead of hand sewing, I could use a decorative stitch to finish the binding. I tried it first on my Easter quilt, and loved it, so I'm going to do that for all my bindings from now on. Here's what it looks like.

Beginner's Guide to Quilting

I just started quilting in January 2007, and I thought that I would share a few tips with people on the things that I read about and discover on quilting.

I started by purchasing a learn to quilt package. This included:

cutting mat

rotary cutter

pattern for a cat quilt

acrylic ruler

pins

needles

thread

thimble

I separately purchased fabric. I bought the fabric from Michael's, who has fat quarters in sets of 5 coordinating fabrics. A fat quarter is a piece of material that is 18" x 22".

Here is my finished quilt. Quilt #1. I used pink, purple, and green fabric.

General tips:

Buy a beginnger's quilt package. It makes it easy for you to start and finish your first quilt, and you don't have to worry about missing supplies, and having to go back to the store.

Buy a coordinating package of material, so that you don't have to worry about which fabrics go well together. That's something that you can learn as you become more experienced with quilting. The fabric from the fat quarters at Michael's are very hight quality, but the selection is pitiful. The fat quarters from Joann's gives you better selection, but their fabric quality is questionable.