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| Bandana Quilt |
In case you can't tell, this is a blanket (I tied it originally instead of stitching it together, making it a "blanket" rather than a "quilt") that's had it's top torn apart pretty badly. I made it for Ken, maybe even before we were married. We had a pug that LOVED laying on this side and waving his legs around. One day, a claw got caught in a seam and his energetic waving simply ripped the material. Then he found the stuffing and it was all great fun. For him. Sigh.
The thing is, the one I was using before this is in just as bad state, but only from wear (my Gram made it for me to take to college 20+ years ago). And the one before that was also made by Gram (probably from before I was born) using some of Grandpa's old flannel shirts, and I wore that one out, too. I tried to repair them, and will continue to try, but they just shouldn't be used!
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| Notice that you can see right through the material! |
And, again, the idea wasn't mine originally -- Ken and I were walking through a Jo-Ann's, when I saw a bright colored picture of a quilt. It was a quilt class for kids.
Now, I'm an advanced quilter. Let's say, at the craftsman level -- I don't like curves, and I don't have the free-thinking for artistry. But I have a LOT of experience with straight lines and triangles. But, to be fair, I tried to BUY the pattern from them. I didn't need, nor want, to take a class with kids, but I was willing to pay my dues. But the class was $45 -- not including supplies. Let me repeat that: NOT INCLUDING SUPPLIES!!! So parents are paying something like $70 for just the quilt top (if the kid manages to finish it). On the other hand, the kid is learning do-it-yourself stuff that can be applied through the rest of life, and how to use a sewing machine, and gaining self-esteem, and the parent isn't in charge of it (which can be a double-edged sword). Whatever. But, when I went back to buy the "pattern" and they refused me flat, I just looked at their floor model, added an extra row so it would fit the bed, bought the bandana's, and made it my own.
So, first is the supplies. I purchased 12 bandana's. I did choose to buy them from Jo-Ann's, if for no other reason than that they felt the quality was good enough to teach children. And that's just it -- the quality of bandana's changes from one manufacturer to another. I found huge differences in these, and they were the same manufacturer. The important thing is that they need to stay the same size and they need to be square. I just chose what looked nice to me, but now I wished I'd left the blue's and green's out. They were too cool next to the warmth of the reds, yellow, and oranges.
Next, I made pattern pieces. I hadn't ever done that before, but the pattern was simple enough and I have access to a color-copier and I'm great with computers. I just scanned the bandanas onto the computer, resized them to 2" squares (this didn't work as well as I had hoped, but it WAS plenty fine), and printed them. Mark all 4 sides of each square on the back with a number (Celestial suns is 1, Tie-dye is 2, etc). Then I cut the square out, then cut corner to corner, then, finally, I cut one of the triangles in half. Then I laid them out and worked with 2 different friends to come up with a pattern:
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| #Briana Lynema helped with this one. |
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| #Lindsay Oegema helped with this one. |
I took a picture, made a graph of the pattern using the numbers, and moved these out of the way. Then I started assembling the top.
First, iron the bandanas.
Normally, I'd say that you need to "square" up the bandana's. That is, measure every last one of them to find which is the smallest side, then cut all of them to match that smallest side. But, because I wanted this project to be simple and fun for the beginner, I decided to trust the squareness of the bandanas. I'm so gullible, lol. I'd also say to wash them, but I chose to NOT do so because I wanted the stiffness of the material pre-wash.
There's a trick to doing triangles. You start with 2 squares, faces together, and sew from one corner to the diagonal corner. Then you trim one of the halves away. I made a sketch:
I modified this technique -- instead of going from one corner to the other, I ironed the two bandanas and used the iron fold as a guide, both to follow on the right side and to cut down the middle.
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| Place the pieces faces together. |
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| Fold in half. |
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| Make sure the corners are straight. |
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| Press the fold into a line. |
Now I added this little trick -- while still folded, pin near the fold, straight through.
Unfold, and the pins are in place and nothing has moved. . . No matching required.
Pull the pins.
Cut the bandanas down the fold line. Notice the sew line in this picture:
Open the newly made block and iron the seam flat, back side first, then the front side.
Check off the two pieces of the finished square on the graph that was made.
Put the joined pieces away safely. I have cute little hangers (found and purchased from my local Habitat ReStore) with clips -- these kept them from wrinkling.
So this leaves three other types of joinings: 1) two large triangles that will have to be cut, 2) one large triangle that will need cutting and one small triangle, and 3) two small triangles. They are all treated differently.
The two large triangles work the same way as the whole bandanas. Put the faces together
Fold in half, matching the corners and the top tip should be in half.
Iron the seam.
Do the pin thing, open the triangles, sew the seam, match to the pattern, cut along the fold, iron, and put away.
The next kind of join is the big triangle / little triangle join. Fold the big triangle in half, match the corners and the tip should be in half, iron the seam down. The difference is that you match the little triangle along the fold line. I think three of my four rip-it's were from this kind of join.
One way to keep on track is to literally lay it out the pieces the way they need to look in the pattern, then fold one of the pieces over.
Fold the large triangle in half, match corners and tip, and iron. Notice that the small triangle is off to the side in this picture.
Match the little triangle along the fold:
Sew the seam. Match to the pattern.
Cut along the fold.
The last kind of join is the easiest because there's no folding and ironing. Just match the proper seam, sew, match the pattern, iron the seam, and put safely away.
Now that you know how to do each kind of join, start assembling your pattern. I kind of bopped around, but I'd also suggest doing the two triangle squares first, then 1/2 of the 4 triangle squares, combining the halves as you are able. Below is a pictorial:
Sew (a) to (b), and (c) to (d), and so on, then go back and sew (aa) to (bb), and (cc) to (dd), then sew (aa/bb) to (cc/dd), and so on. Keep ironing each new seam!
***Darn! Filled in an hour's worth and the computer quit (AFTER saying that I had saved this) and I lost it all. :L ***
So, in this example, sew (ab) to (aabbccdd). Then sew the newly made (abaabbccdd) to (cd). This makes up Row #1. Repeat for each of the other 3 rows. You're still ironing your seams, right?
Now, sew Row #1 and Row #2 together. Sew Row #3 and Row #4 together. (You build like this because it's going to start getting heavy. No need to strain yourself or your machine any more than necessary. FINALLY, sew Row 1&2 to Row 3&4. Almost, but not quite done ironing. No, I lie -- you iron everything. Sorry.
The next part is both easy and hard to put in pictures. . . I made my own backing. Some people use a sheet -- this can be an economical AND sturdy way to go. But for those who want to go a more traditional way, this is how I did it:
First, figure out how much you need. The key is to continually round up. You want extra. A very comfortable extra. I just learned this technique recently, and while my technique is reasonable and traditional, I feel like I've been put through the frustration mill way too many times.
The problem is, I was taught by someone who survived the Great Depression. So I relied on math and experience to keep me out of trouble. To use only just as much as I needed. Now, I know better.
So, first, how much material to get? Well, now that you have the top done, measure ALL FOUR SIDES. Hopefully, there's not a huge discrepancy, but, either way, take the larger number of the length's and of the width's. For ease, I'll say mine came out to 60 x 80. Material tends to come in 45" or 60" width's, but there's a selvage (the tight weave on the uncut edges) that may not be appropriate (i.e. a glaringly different color) to consider, and if it's badly woven, you'll lose inches for that, and you'll be seaming which is another 1/2" to 1", etc. Hence, the rounding up I was talking about. The 45" is much more common, so we'll use that for the base of the calculations AND, I'm going to assume 40" instead (it's part of the rounding-up). Added together, you can get 80" approximately.
Now, while my height is 80", this is like dancing on the head of a pin -- in other words, do not assume that this can cover your length! This will take care of the 60" width. So you need 80 x 2 = 160. Divide 160 by 36 (inches in a yard) to get 4.44 yards. ROUND UP to 5 yards.
While we're at it, let's figure binding material. Take your width + length and mutiple by 2 (because there's a top and bottom and a right side and a left side) -- 60 + 80 = 140 x 2 = 280. Divide the 280 x 40 (the standard width of fabric bolts) = 7. Again, for sanity's sake, we'll round up to 8. This means we'll need 8 strips that have been cut 2-1/2" wide. 8 x 2.5 = 20" / 36" = .55 yards and round up to 1 yard. Now mine is just figuring out with nice margins of error, but if you ever feel that it's not enough, round up more.
My husband, Ken, and I went off to Hobby Lobby to see what they had. And he had to work really reallyreally REALLY hard to curb my tendency for bright colors / glitz / audacious patterns / loudness. I don't do subtle EVER. But in the end, his even-headedness and price won out. Everything I picked was going to be too much on something that was already over-the-top bright OR it was more than I wanted to pay for background. We were lucky enough to find a subtley elegant material on the sales rack -- burgundy background with a light red (hard pink?) paisley print scattered across. And, for the binding, Ken found a black background with yellow-tinged cream leaf print.
And we picked up batting. And here's the wonder (my Gram would have LOVED this -- just because she was old didn't mean she HAD to do things the traditional way): they make fusible batting now. If you get good quality fusible batting, all the sins of the past don't have to be repeated. I was taught to "tie" a blanket, a process involving yarn or cotton thread, where you stretch (on specially prepared boards) the back, the batting, and the top and you use massive and massively SHARP needles to poke through and back up. But it was back-breaking, finger-numbing, bloody work. I taught myself how to machine quilt after Gram died, but I couldn't ever get it good enough for my specifications. I also ended up with the "pouch" or I sewed a "tuck" into one of the quilting lines. I gave up quilting because of this.
Fusible batting makes up for all of this. But, it has to be double-sided fusible batting. And, it's best if you ask an experienced quilter which one's hold up to the ironing process.
Warm and Natural is a new type of batting (since Gram taught me) and I really like it. But, alas, it doesn't come in fusible -- but there's a similar brand that does called Hobbs (or something like that). I used that and it worked just fine. If you're more of a traditionalist, go ahead and get the old-fashioned batting. But get it FUSIBLE.
DO NOT WASH THE BATTING. But DO wash the backing material and the binding material. This will wash away trace dye's before they have a chance to ruin the quilt top. And, obviously, if they DO seem to run, wash them again (and again and as many times as needed) until they STOP running color. You may want to stick a white sock or handkerchief or scrap pieces or whatever in to make sure.
Once washed, clip 1" in from each cut in and RIP. If you've had a bad day, this part is FUN. I call it "true-ing up the edge". You simply grasp material on each side of the cut and rip the material down -- it does require a bit of effort, so you can't be tentative. If you don't make it all the way to the other selvedge edge, make another notch on the opposing selvedge edge and try again. Really poor quality material will true-up crooked and you may want to not use the material at all. Also, if you have a straight edge pattern, if it doesn't true-up to coordinate with the pattern, it'll cause problems. Here's a pictorial example:
So, anyway, true-up both cut edges (it does NOT work on the selvedge) for both the backing and border. Then, take backing, and, faces together, fold it in half. At the halfway point, cut through the selvedge and RIP again.
Now, iron both back pieces and the binding material.
Pin the two backing pieces, right sides facing, along the selvedge edge. You're going to sew, but make sure any unglamorous part of the selvedge doesn't show through. Like, for instance, my material is burgundy, but part of the selvedge was white. I had to sew 1/4" in from the white so that it wouldn't show. In my example I ended up with a sewed piece of material approximately 80" x 90". Iron the seam down (only this time iron it so that if folds back on itself. Like this:)
And the backing is done. Time to quilt! No, no, no, just kidding. We're getting ready to do some serious ironing now. Can you tell that it's a part I DON'T like?
Lay the backing material, face down, on a clear open space, preferable carpet. My carpet needs to be replaced, so I had absolutely NO INHIBITIONS with poking pins in it to keep the backing from moving around. And, I really don't think it hurts anything. But, I suppose if I had a priceless Persian antique rug, I wouldn't do it. Or use it as an ironing board either. Just keep working the material until it's flat and wrinkle free.
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| Notice the pin. |
Now, repeat with the batting. I've never heard of a batting that had an upside or a downside, but if they ever make it, use common sense. I worked the wrinkles out by using the same pins. And, as you can see, I didn't take the batting all the way to the edge (although it was too big, so I went well over the edge on the other side, lol).
And, finally, repeat with the quilt top, except lay it face up. Again, I used the same pins to secure the top. There's nothing worse than getting poked with a pin that got lost in all the material!
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| Note the very GOOD DOGS that are NOT on the quilt! |
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| I've now used this pin three different times. |
And iron. I had to look up the instructions, but it was Cotton setting and for only 2 - 3 seconds, so careful ironing, not speed ironing, and not SLOW ironing. Start from the middle and work out to the edges and up to the corner, doing one quadrant at a time. I worked counter-clockwise. Start with the corner that doesn't have lots of extra of anything. And remove the pins as you get to them (I stuck them in my sofa, lol). IF YOU FIND THAT YOU'VE IRONED A WRINKLE IN, or think that it's not good enough, or it went crooked, or whatever, you just peel it back away and start again. The fusible is NOT PERMANENT. It's just meant to provide a temporary hold long enough to quilt evenly. And, the instructions said that it will "loft up" quite a bit as it relaxes with washing. Nice.
Once I'd ironed it completely, I pulled it up, checking to remove pins one more time, then I started quilting. I used dark pink thread for the back, and a specialty ombre thread for the top. I chose to do a big diagonal pattern that ended up looking like giant diamonds. Mostly, I followed seams that were already there, but each of the two-triangle squares need a line that didn't have a seam. I did a big pattern because there was less likely to go wrong than with a delicate tiny pattern. And it was faster, lol.
Turn it over and make sure nothing happened to the back (like pouches or tucks) that you can't live with. If something did happen, I'm sorry. No advice except to try to gently rip it out and try again?
Now, this is the beauty of the new technique that my friend #Lindsay Oegema taught me -- it's time to even up the quilt. Again, Gram went through the Depression and Gram taught me to not be wasteful. But this extra step clears up frustration AND gives a professional looking edge.
Just eyeballing, try to figure out what your lowest point is on one side. You're establishing what to trip down to. Then trim off the edges to even the whole thing up. This is where a cutting board, rotary cutter, and clear plastic ruler come in handy. Do a length, move it down a bit, do another foot, using the already trimmed part to keep you on an even cut, move it down a bit, etc. You should have removed a bit from the whole side -- if you missed your lowest point (didn't trim it), now you know how much deeper to take your cut and try it again. Repeat for the other three sides, except now you have a cut side to match on your grid to keep it square. This was the scariest part for me, but only because it was a new technique.
Last step of the process: the binding. Using the rotary cutter, cutting board, and gridded ruler, trim one of the ripped edges off the binding material. Then cut as many strips as you had decided you needed (8 in my case) -- as long as you can get them and 2-1/2" wide:
This is called mitering the joins. You put them face together, but at right angles and you sew a diagonal from one corner to the other. It may take practice, and always open the fold to make sure it's making a continuous length:
Once you feel confident that it's right, snip the corner away -- be sure to snip on the correct side of the seam!
Trim one of the ends on a diagonal, too.
Fold the length over, in half, the long way, and iron the entire length.
Fold the end that was cut at a diagonal over just a bit and iron that down, too.
Start sewing with the diagonal end, face down, unfolded, and one side against the trimmed edge of the quilt. Sew for several inches this way. Do NOT START AT A CORNER. Start somewhere in the middle of a side, preferably on the bottom.
Once you've gone the several inches, pull away just a little, fold the binding over, and continue sewing from where you left off, only with both edges.
To do the corners, you sew right up to the next edge, stop and pull away just a little, fold the binding over the sewn edge (making a diagonal fold), then fold back on itself, aligning with the new edge. It's tough to show this, so I tried making another pictorial:
Once you get near the starting point, note where the beginning and ending will overlap, give yourself a couple extra inches (but no more than whatever it was before you started sewing double up), then trim the excess binding away. Lay the end over the already sewn part of the beginning and fold the unsewn beginning part over. Work it all flat, pin at your discretion, and finish sewing the binding on.
Almost done, and the last bit of ironing -- iron the binding, top of the quilt, flat and out. Then, flip the whole thing over and iron the binding down, evenly, all along the back. Pin it all in place:
Final step: Sew the binding down. Here, I'm demonstrating stitch-in-the-ditch, which actually means sewing literally in the middle of the seam (so that when you're not pulling the stuffing out of it, it'll relax and mound over your stitches making them invisible). But, the point is to catch the binding in the back, so if it's not catching all the time, you may want to move over toward the edge and sew ON the binding. Whatever is required.
When you've made the (hopefully) final trek around the quilt, turn it over and make sure there's not spots where the binding didn't get secured. If you find some, just go over that little part.
Once it's done, take your pictures, then wash it. And that's it, you're done!
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