November's Here! Time To Sew It Together!!!

It's hard to believe... December is here. This year has sure flown by! It's time to wrap up this year's BOM. Grab a cup of coffee, tea or a diet coke... this posting is going to be a bit long. I have so much to show you! If you have your blocks all sewn together with the border, you can get it all ready to quilt.  Or.... you can add the fun curvy bias edge in the border. When I originally designed this quilt I was planning on making this decorative edge using green fabric. In fact it's listed on your supply sheet. When I reached the point of adding this, I didn't like using just the plain green... I decided to use bits and pieces of fabric I had left to make my bias 'tape'. I have general directions to make Bias Binding on my website. It's a PDF that is downloadable on my website. It can be found under my Quilting Fun tab. This bias tape is wonderful to make up and have on hand.

To make a scrappy bias binding you will first need to piece all of your scraps together to form a 'sheet' that measures approximately 40" x 40" give or take a few inches... I used 4 , quarter yards of fabric of four of my fabrics... I also press all of my seams open to cut down on the bulk in the seam..

I needed to square up my fabric.... you can see I have some excess to cut off....

Then cut your square in half corner to corner to form two large triangles.

Lay the two triangles, right sides together lining up 'straight edges'. (Not the diagonal edges.) 

Machine stitch a 1/4" seam along this edge. You are making a parallelogram.

You can sorta see the parallelogram here.... 

Along the bias edge, mark a line of the width of your bias strip.

Looks like I cut mine to be 2 1/4" wide.

Cut about 6"....

You then will join the top and bottom edges together (these are cut on the straight of the grain, not the bias sides) right sides together. Sew a 1/4" seam. You are making a bias tube.

Use the loose bias strip as a guide to continue cutting your continuous bias strip. As you can see I have a smaller cutting matte inside my fabric tube so that I can use my rotary cutter to cut my strip. Keep cutting your continuous bias strip until the bias tube is all 'used up'...

In no time you will have a beautiful pile of bias binding! I then iron it in half lengthwise.

No onto the tricky part.... making the curving edge. I marked my border with pins to show where the unfinished edge of my bias tape should line up. If you have a 'scallop' template, you can also use that. I referred to the quilt layout sheet as a guide.

I then sew on my bias binding lining it up with my 'line' for the scalloped edge. I am sewing a 1/4" seam. Remember the binding is folded in half. 

After you have sewn the binding scallop all the way around the quilt. It's now time to fold it over on itself. 

I then topstitch the edge down using a buttonhole or blanket stitch that is found on my machine. The same stitch that I used to sew the Dresden plates onto my blocks. 

After I've sewn all the way around, I then sew on the other side of my binding strip using the same stitch.

Here's a close up photo showing you my stitches.

I then sent my quilt off to be quilted by a gal I met at one of my guild presentations. Her name is Mary. A super nice gal who is from my old hometown that I graduated from. She remembered my husband and sister-in-law who had grown up in the small farming community. I felt pretty good giving her my 'baby' to quilt. I just told her that I wanted a scalloped edge, other than that she had full reign as to how to quilt this quilt. I was absolutely blown away when I got my quilt back. It turns out, Mary had written a few books on longarm quilting and used to teach classes. She is very talented. I just love the work she had done on my BOM quilt. 

I wish the photos did justice on how beautiful the quilting is...

I love the feathered detail in the border...

~Childhood Memories~ On the Farm~

I want to thank you for joining me this year as we worked on the BOM 2017. I would love to see your finished quilt tops so feel free to email me pictures, or tag me om Instagram. 

Patterns can be found on the Quilt Doodle website and on Craftsy (Not until the 1st of the month). Did you miss a pattern along the way? The past monthly patterns can be found in my Etsy and Craftsy shops for a small fee.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's BOM 2017 quilt. Now onto announce what's coming in 2018. Yep! You guessed it, another BOM.

I am also planning on writing this up into a complete pattern set, it should be out in a month or two. I hope that you all have had fun with this years quilt! Do stayed tuned and mark your calendars, a NEW BOM will be on the way January 1, 2018!

          Thank you for following along with this years BOM!
Cindy