Hello! My name is Aimee Griffin, from overallquilter.com

And today’s video is on Chain Piecing. I’m going to show you how to do quick stitching of the pieces using the half-square triangles from last week’s video.

But first, a thank you to Elsie, Diane and Pebble for their donations this week.

We are going to be making a pinwheel clock, using our half-square triangles from last week’s video. To do a quick chain piecing of this, we are going to take one block, and flip it on top of the other. I have here two blocks, and I’m going to show you how to chain piece those. So let’s go to our sewing machine.

When you are chain piecing, you want to start with a little piece of fabric, and that’s called your started piece. And what this does, is prevents your fabric from going into the well of your sewing machine. So, it’s a good idea to always use the starter. I do not pin because it’s such a small distance. So, I’m just going to lay my two squares on top of each other, and start stitching on my starter, feeding the next piece right after. When you get to the end, use your stiletto to hold down any of the seams that might want to come up.  Take your next piece and feed it right in.  Between each unit, there’s about 1 to 2 stitches.  Pull that out so you can see.  From each unit, there’s about 1 to 2 stitches between each other.

And that is Chain Piecing.  That will make it go quick and easy for you.  I’ll see you next week.

Hello, my name is Aimee Griffin, from overallquilter.com

Welcome to video 5: How to Join Strips for Borders and Bindings.

Today we’ll be using:

• The Olfa Mat
• Clover Silk Pins
• Fons & Porter Marking Pencil
• A Small Ruler, and
• Your Strips

So we are going to join our strips together for borders, or for doing your bindings. And what I’m gonna do is, start by taking my first strip and laying it on my mat, lining it up with my grid. So this strip is laid horizontally.

My next strip is going to lie on top of it, but vertically. And again, I’m going to follow my grid lines on my mat. This way I know that I’m nice and straight horizontally, as well as vertically. I also overlap top and bottom, or top and side, where my selvages are. And the reason I do that is, it is much easier to see your corners, if you have a little bit of your overlap. Once you have one horizontal and one vertical, draw a diagonal line from the top corner, top left corner, to the bottom right corner. And then add two pins, one on each side of the line just to keep your strips together. Now, if you have multiple strips then take your strip, flip it over, and now this strip becomes your horizontal, and your new strip becomes your vertical. Again, overlap it, leaving your selvages, so that you can clearly see corner to corner. Draw your line, and pins on both sides of the line. Now the trick to having a perfect joint, is to make sure that you draw a straight line from that corner to that corner, but also to stitch right on top of that line, from corner to corner. And we’ll go to the Sewing Machine so we can show you how to do that.

So now, we are going to stitch right on top of the drawn line. I’m gonna start with a little piece, my starter, and I’m going to stitch right on top of that line. I’ve changed my foot to an open-toe foot, to an appliqué foot because it’s easier for me to see my stitching line. And once you’ve done your stitching, you should have a perfect joint. And what I’m looking at is to make sure that my piece is nice and straight. Once I have a nice and straight piece, then I can go ahead and cut my quarter. And I just do it with my scissors. By just an approximate quarter. And we’ll take it to the Ironing Board, and we’ll press that seam open. Once that seam is pressed open, you’ll have a nice joint. And you do that with all your strips.

Hello. My name is Aimee Griffin from overallquilter.com.

Welcome to video number 4, Squaring Up Your Quilt. So you’re done with your quilt top, you’ve gotten it quilted, and you’re ready to put your binding on.

The first thing you want to do is, make sure that have nice, straight edges. Sometimes, when you’re quilting, or with your quilting, your borders tend to get a little bit distorted depending on how much quilting you’ve e put on them. So today’s video, I’m going to show you how to take your Square Ruler, and your Long Ruler, and get a nice, straight-edge cut, so that your binding will sit nice and straight.

But before that, I want to show you some patterns that we’ve been working on before a Fling collection, and here they are. Here’s six of twelve current Floral Fling patterns available on overallquilter.com. Just click on the online shop link. My favorite is the Monarch. These are all raw edge appliqué patterns, great for lots of thread play opportunities.

Today’s tools are:

• The Olfa Mat, Rotary cutting mat.
• A 10 ½ inch Square
• A 6 ½ by 24 inch Long Ruler, and
• A 60 mm Rotary Cutter. I like the 60 mm when I’m squaring up because I’m going through multiple layers. Remember, you are going through your top, your batting, as well as your backing. So, having the 60 mm gives me a better grip on my, on my cutting.

So we’re ready to cut our quilt down or trim our quilt down, so that we can add our binding. But we’ve got to make sure first that we are even, all the way through. That our border is even all the way through.  If you’ve started with the 6 ½ inch border, once you’ve taken that seam in, you’re now down to 6 and a ¼. The more quilting you have, the more chances of your border being distorted. So, I’m gonna take my Square Ruler and I’m going to position it so that I can square down to 6 inches all the way around, making sure that my borders all are consistent. Take your 12 ½ or your 10 ½ inch Ruler, Square Ruler, and line up the 6 inch line with the outside border and inner border seam. I’m gonna make sure that, that is nicely lined up. And if you need to wiggle your quilt a little bit, it’s okay. You wanna make sure that you’re nice and straight. My 6-inch line is nice and straight on that seam, and my 6-inch line is nice and straight on this seam. Now I can take my Rotary Cutter, and cut all the way out. And I always start on the corners because I want to use my Square on the corners. So I’m gonna do one corner, and then  I’m going to continue using my 6 ½ inch Ruler, and I’m just going to turn my quilt, and this is a fairly large quilt, so I want to put it on my table. And the other thing you don’t want to do, is have your quilt dragging on the floor because it does pull on you. You want to make sure that you have the entire quilt on the table, which is sometimes kind of hard if you don’t have a big enough space. That’s why I like the large mats. So, I’m gonna take my 6 ½ inch Ruler, I’m gonna find my 6-inch measurement and once again, line that 6-inch line with the seam that’s between my outside border, and my inside border. That last seam that you have there. Now I’m nice and straight, all the way through. Now, if you’ve seen my first video, the cutting video, you’ll know that when I cut a long piece, I cut half way, re-position my hand and the cut the rest of the way. And I’m going to do that again when I’m cutting my borders. Once again, ensure that you have a nice straight line. Start, go half way, Rotary Cutter down, re-position your hand, and cut all the way. And now, we’re going to go ahead and move our quilt down again, and as you see, we are doing it in sections because this is a large quilt. So, I’m going to move my quilt, re-position my quilt, making sure once again that my 6-inch line is sitting right on that seam. And I’m going to cut halfway to my Ruler, re-position my hand, and cut all the way through. Now, as I get closer to the corner, we’ve got one more. One more long Ruler, and then we’ll use our Square Ruler again. And I’ll show you how to do that again, one more time. Take my Long Ruler, find my 6-inch line. Now, not all borders are not 6 ½ inches. So if you’ve got 8 ½ inch border, you’ll need a larger Ruler. You’ll need an 8 ½ inch Ruler. I’m going to go ahead and start, go halfway, re-position my hands, and continue through. Now I’ve gotten to the corner. So I’m going to take my Square Ruler, and once again, I’m going to position that 6-inch on the corner there. Now, my Ruler is not big enough. So before I do that, I’m going to take my Long Ruler one more time, and get that, get that cut just a little bit so that I can use my Square Ruler. Once again, I’m going to find my 6-inch line, here’s my 6-inch line. I’m going to line that up with my corner seam, and I’m going to cut, and then I’m going to cut on top one more time.

And you have a nice 90 degree angle. And you want to do that all the way through, catching or cutting all corners, and all along edges.

And you’ll be ready for your binding.