Mitered Corners Tutorial

Just for YOU, Dianne!

To make mitered corners on a border of a quilt, follow these steps:

1)  Normally, when you cut border fabric for your quilt, you measure the width of the quilt and cut a strip to that measurement.  However, if you are going to add a mitered corner, you need the border strip to be longer than the quilt.  Extend the border piece past the edge of the quilt by at least twice what the width of the border is. Do this for BOTH ends because you will be mitering a corner on each end. So if you have a 60 inch quilt side, you would need @ a 72" border strip. (6" for the miter on the left + 60" for the width of the quilt + 6 for the miter corner on the right.)  My border piece is 2.5" wide, and the "tail" is 8 inches.

Sew on the border as usual, right sides together, top of the border  aligned with the top of the quilt.  Don't start sewing at the edge like usual though.  Put a pin at the top at 1/4" from the edge.  When you lay your border strip across your quilt, with the extra sticking off for the miter, you will know where to start sewing. Start sewing 1/4" in from the side, at your pin. Sew a few stitches, then back-stitch to secure the seam, then continue sewing the border until you get near the other side.  Stop sewing before you get to the end, about a quarter inch from the edge. I mark this point with a pin too so I don't forget to stop before I get to the edge.  You don't want to sew right off the edge like usual. And, if the quilt strip is on top, you can't see the edge of the quilt!  So, use a pin!  In the picture above,  you can see the pin that marks the quarter inch where I need to stop sewing in the picture.  BACKSTICH both the starting point and the end to secure the seams.

2)  Sew your second border in the same way, starting and stopping a quarter inch from the side edges, backstitching to secure the seams.  It will look something like what you see on the left--the borders should almost touch when you fold the tails back at 45 degree angles. You can sew a few extra stitches if necessary to get them closer, or tear out a few if they are sewed together.  You want to see a tiny space between them.

3) Press your stitching line to set the seams, then fold your border up and iron it, continue ironing the quarter inch seam allowance on the tails as well.  This will be helpful later on.

Now that your borders are sewed on, we can start the miter.

4)  Fold the quilt diagonally, right sides together.   Make sure that your two borders are matched along the top.  I put in a couple pins up there to hold it.  You want your corner block to be folded at a 45 degree angle.  You can use the markings on your mat or ruler to get an accurate fold.
(Here you can see that I have paper-pieced part of my quilt.  Pay no-nevermind to that!  It is not relevant to the process of mitering corners! Paper piecing is another lesson for another day...!)

5)  Lay your long ruler against the fold, extending that 45 degree angle across your border.  Draw a line against your ruler on the border fabric at that 45 degree angle.  This will be your sewing line.

 

  

6)  Now put pins on both sides of the line, around 3/4 inch from the line.  (This is where you'll find it helpful that you have previously ironed that seam allowance on your tail.)  These pins will hold everything together while you sew.  

7)  Take it to your sewing machine and sew that mitered line you just drew!  You're almost done!

8)  Open it up and take a peek!  Hopefully it'll look wonderful and you won't have to make any "adjustments!"

9)  Cut the tails off around quarter inch from the sewing line.  I like to leave it a little wider, but that's just a personal preference.  Quarter inch is standard.

10)  Press the seam open.  Snip off any "ears" of the seam allowance that stick out.

ALL DONE!

I hope this was helpful.

(Wow!  I hope ALL my corners turn out this gorgeous!!  I didn't plan that corner at all! The pattern looks so round, and the X's sort of flow right into each other!)

Getting There

I have been cranking away on these A and B blocks.  I have only 3 or 4 left to go.  Then the borders.  I have picked up a few tricks along the way, and I can get one of these blocks done in about an hour now.  Here's how it looks so far:

There is one more row to go on the top, I have 3 blocks done.  So, this part is almost done.  I just have to sew the rows together, and then add the borders.  I think it's beautiful.  (Looks better in person than in the picture!) 

Notice my beautiful impatiens plant.  I brought it inside before the first frost and it loves my sewing room. It shed all its flowers and a lot of leaves (it maybe got a slight tinge of frost....) but now it is bursting forth in new flowers and certainly adding a lot of color to my room.  I also have 2 begonias in there, brought in before the frost, and a jade, an aloe, and Mertyl.  Mertyl is a plant of some sort, probably 20 or 25 years old.  We put it outside in the summer, where it thrives in the sun, wind and rain, and bring it inside every fall where it sheds leaves like crazy and pouts til spring.  But this year, Mertyl is putting out new growth in the sewing room, leaning toward the light (remind me to rotate her periodically).  The sewing room is a GOOD SPACE, for me and the plants.  The dogs like it too, laying in the one patch of sun on the carpet.  With south and west windows, this room gets a lot of sun and is bright and cheery.  I love my sewing room!

Quilt Guild

I have been negligent in not telling you that I have joined a newly formed quilt guild.  There have only been 2 meetings so far.  We meet on the second Monday of every month.  There are maybe 20-25 members so far!  Most of our activities have been organizational so far, we voted on a name for our group:  The Lafayette County Sew 'n Sews!  I think it will be an interesting group with fun things to do.

Our first activity is "Birthday Blocks."  In the month before your birthday, you bring in a square (@ 8") of focus fabric and pass out one square to each person.  They have to take it home and cut it apart and make a quilt block with it for you.  The next month, they bring it back to the meeting and give it to you.  You then have 1 year to make a quilt with all these birthday blocks.  We discussed this at our first meeting, and so 3 ladies have Dec. birthdays, and brought focus fabric squares to pass out.  Here are the 3 focus fabrics:

and here are the quilt blocks I made with them:

The first two are called Spider Web blocks, and they are both 12.5 inches so they will finish off as a 12" block.  The last one is called Gate and Stiles, and is an 8.5 block (finished off at 8".)

I had a hard time with the larger blocks because there really wasn't much focus fabric to work with.  An 8 inch square couldn't even give you one strip long enough to cross the entire block!  You had to cut a lot of smaller pieces, and so (I think) you lose the focus of the "focus fabric." It was hard to find a pattern with pieces small enough so you could get enough, but large enough so that you can see the design of the fabric. In contrast, the last block is a lot smaller and the pieces could be bigger, and the focus is easily seen.  I enjoyed making these blocks though, and the challenge was a lot of fun!  Next month is MY month to bring a focus fabric.  I think I will bring bigger blocks of focus fabric for the people so they will have more options.  It's definitely something we need to discuss.

Production Line

I have a system going that is working very well for me now in regards to the Four Winds quilt.  I paper-piece the top triangle, and sew quarter inch seams on the bottom triangle.  It takes about 1.5 hours to do both sections and sew them together to make the block. Maybe less if I don't have to rip anything out.  I have the fabric pieces readily accessible, my iron hot and within reach of my sewing machine.  Just swivel in the chair from one task to the next!  Maybe I'll get my time down to an hour per block!  Here's my "production line!"

Fabric is all cut for the entire quilt top.

Paper Piecing the top triangle

My work station

Progress so far

Meanwhile...Back at the Ranch

(This page is a compilation of several posts I have been saving to publish after Dianne has seen her Advent Calendar.  She has seen it now, so I can publish these posts.  I just put them all in one post, in chronological order, so they might seem out of order, since the first post was from last Feb.!)

February 26, 2013  (Today just happens to be Dianne's birthday!  Happy 29+, Dianne! )

My Painted Lady quilt has been put on hold until the backing fabric arrives.
So, in the meanwhile ... I am working on Dianne's Advent Calender.  Since this is for Dianne, and since she reads this blog on occasion (when I tell her I put up something new), I obviously can't post this til after she receives the calender.  But I wanted to keep a log of how it's coming along, and then put it into the blog afterwards.

Last December, Dianne and I talked about making an Advent Calendar.  It was something I already had in mind to do, so I downplayed it to her.  I had found an Advent Calender fabric panel but didn't want to make it like that panel. I bought the panel anyway because it had Christmas-y numbers and I had something in mind for it.

Original Design

 I had found this wall hanging of a Christmas tree, and I wanted to combine both these projects into an Advent Calender similar to something my family had used when Dianne was a little girl.  You know me, I can't just do a project the way the directions say!  I gotta "fancy it up!"

I have been working on the tree for about a week, and I have all the half-triangles sewn into horizontal rows now.  I ditched that big clunky star for something a little more delicate.  I am using squares for the white background instead of half triangles as the directions say.  My "white" background fabric for this project is an off-white fabric with gold glitter.  Perhaps "glitter" is not the right word, but there is gold sparkles in the fabric, or perhaps sprayed on.  If you rub your fingers across the glitter, you can get gold sparkles on your fingers.  It reminds me of that lotion that leaves a gold shimmer on your skin.  Very pretty, but I have to be very careful when I iron!  The shimmer can disappear and all I have left is an ivory fabric!  The glitter must melt or something.  It doesn't stick to the iron, it just disappears.  I have had to redo several squares because of this oddity.  So, here are a couple of pics of MY project so far!

My Star

The Numbers going around the tree will be covered by doors.  When you open the door, there will be an ornament that you can put on the tree to decorate.  24 doors.  Start on Dec. 1, and by the time the trees is decorated, Santa will be here!  Anyway, that's my idea.  We'll see how it goes!

September 15, 2013

One of the projects I am working on while my sewing machine is being fixed is Dianne's Christmas Calender.  I broke out my old rattletrap Walmart Brother sewing machine.  Nice to have a backup, but oh!  what a difference.  Like going from a Cadillac to a Volkswagen.  Anyway, I have about half of the doors finished with their pockets and velcro sewed on, and now ready to attach to the calender.  One thing about sewing through velcro..  Be sure to buy the NON-STICK type.  After every three or four doors, I had to remove the needle and clean the gluey gunk off the needle and scissors with Goo-Gone. When I am done with the velcro sewing, I will throw this needle away.  It can't be sharp anymore!  I still have to sew the "hooks"  half of the velcro to the tree, but I don't want to do that till after I quilt it.  Anyway... progress!  And it's looking good!

October 20, 2013

I have this project finished now! I had such fun making the ornaments!  I gave up sewing that damn stick-on velcro on with the sewing machine.  I did a few squares of the stuff with hand sewing, but you definitely need a thimble to push the needle through all these layers.  My poor finger looks like it petted (pet?) a porcupine from not using a thimble!  I found one, but it didn't work very well.  It was metal and didn't stay on my finger, and had a tendency to roll sideways.  SO!  I went out and bought some NON_STICK velcro!  What a life saver!  All the velcro on the tree is sewed now.  So much nicer to use sew-on velcro!  A few of the ornaments have the stick on velcro yet, I am hoping it will stay stuck!  I used some of those foam sheets to make some of the ornaments, and you can't sew through those, it tears.  So maybe the stick on velcro is the better choice for those.  In any case, here is the finished wall hanging Advent Calendar for Dianne and her family.  I will send it out to her in early November.  I know she will love it.  It is very similar to one we had when she was a little girl, but I had made that one out of  felt.

First Blocks

I have started work on the Four Winds quilt.  I have 7 blocks finished, and have sewed them together in pairs.  I am having all kinds of troubles with it, mostly with the quarter inch seams.  I decided to try paper piecing it, and made a pattern and this would actually work well if I had thought of it in the beginning.  But I have cut all the fabric for the whole quilt, with quarter inch seam allowances.  If I had cut fabric for paper piecing, I would have given the pieces wider seam allowances, like half inch or 3/8th.  It's very hard to align the strips a quarter inch from the sewing line on both sides.  I pin the sewing line so I can see where it is, but things shift, or stretch, or something!  Anyway, as with every quilting project, the more I do, the better I get at it, and I am getting the hang of it now. Here's how it is going so far:

The first blocks of the Four Winds quilt are done.

Four Winds

Here is my next quilt:  I's called The Four Winds by Jinny Beyer, Designer.  This will be for Doug and Gina.  Gina had told me long ago what colors she wanted in her quilt, and I have looked long and hard for a pattern that would "fit" them and have the correct colors, and I think I have found it in this quilt pattern.

My quilt will not look like this, exactly.  The kit is not available anymore, and I have purchased the fabrics piecemeal or used some in my stash.  But the colors will be similar and the pattern the same.  I have all the fabric I need now, my last piece came yesterday.  Here is MY fabric palette:

My Fabrics for my Four Winds Quilt

Some of these ARE from the original Jinny Beyer Kashmir collection, the border fabric, the "white-ish" fabric on the right, and the "teal w/black print".  But most are fabrics that I chose because I think will look well in the quilt.  I'm not always the best at judging how things will look in the long run.  More like, "Oh, this is a pretty fabric, let's use it!"  The A block fabrics are on the left, B blocks are on the right.  I'm hoping this will turn out as beautiful as it looks in the top picture.  Wish me well!

So!  I can start cutting anytime!  This is always an exciting moment, the START!  Makes me a little nervous to cut the border fabric.... I have 7.5 yard, but there is no room for error.  The fabric is printed with exactly a half inch between the border strips, and I need 4 strips that are 98 inches long.  That's tricky!  But I'm anxious to get started, so away I go!

Quilted Purse

Here's a fun little project I whipped up while waiting for my quilt fabric to arrive from Missouri Star Quilt company.  It took me about 4 days to do this purse.  Some of the directions seemed confusing, for example, I didn't know what a gusset was. Yet here I have to make one. Don't we just LOVE GOOGLE!??  The supply list called for 3 different types of interfacing (fusible fleece, Pellon, and Peltex Durabond or "similar substitutes.") but I have no idea what those are either.  There are LOTS of different weights of interfacing.  The one piece was for the bottom of the bag, to hold its shape, so I assumed that was a very heavy piece.  What I used instead (and it worked rather well too) was a piece of plastic from an old lid to a shoebox sized tote.  I cut it to size and slipped it between the  fusible fleece and the "Pellon".  The only problem I had with it was at the end when I had to turn everything inside out, and the plastic couldn't fold up enough to fit through the little hole. I had to make the hole a lot bigger, and that meant more hand sewing at the end of the project.  Not a big deal.  The project used 1 charm pack and three half-yard pieces of fabric.  I originally bought a kit, but now that I know what I am doing, I can make other purses from scraps.  Lots of the fabric doesn't even show, like the charm pieces under the pockets, or the lining of the inside pockets.  It was an interesting project, more of a "sewing project" and a quilting one, but I get a nice purse out of it at the end!

One half of the purse, ready to sew together!

My finished bag!  Let's go shopping now!