Hello, my name is Aimee Griffin from overallquilter.com. In today’s video I’m going to show you how to make pillowcases with hidden seams. And what I mean by that, is that you will not have any flyaway hairs or threads on your seams, on the top or on the sides. We’ll do a French seam on the sides. In this way, you can do pillow cases and donate them to your local quilt shop for the one million pillow case challenge.

A special thanks this week to Yolande, Frances, Terry and Mary Beth for their donations.

Let’s go take a look at our pillow cases.  So fabric comes 42 – 45 inches in width. So that, that’s from selvage to selvage. So we’re going to keep that at 42. I always leave my selvages on too. I don’t worry about that until later on. I’ll square everything up in one shot later on.

My sleeve, this is the sleeve part which is the top part of the pillow case, is a quarter of a yard. So 9 inches wide, by 42 inches long. And I’m just going to lay that face up, on my Ironing Board.

Your next piece is the body of the quilt which is the large piece, of the pillow case, not the quilt. And that is three quarters of a yard. And so again, 27 inches by 42 inches. And I’m gonna lay that right on top of my sleeve, again with it faced up.

My last piece, which is the accent piece, is an- eighth of a yard, so 4 ½ inches by 42 inches. And I’m going to fold that into half and press it, the long width. So that my selvages again, are all nice and even on each of the fabrics. And I’m going to lay that with the raw edge, or the raw edge of the fabrics, all lined up on top.  And again, that lays on top of the body of the quilt.  So again it’s the sleeve, the body of the quilt, and then the accent piece.

Once you have them stacked, you’re going to take the body of the quilt, and fanfold it creating a tube. And once you do that, you want to make sure all your fabrics are lined up. Nice and raw edges. Once you have it fanned, then take the sleeve and bring it ip, and pin starting from the center out. Making sure that you catch all your pieces.  Now, I’m gonna pull it down, so I can see where I’m at.  And I’m gonna take it, and so I’m pinning my sleeve, the body of the quilt, the accent piece, and my sleeve again. So that’s one, two, three, four, five pieces.  Be careful not to grab what you fanned inside. You don’t want that fold, that fan fold to be caught in your seam once you start sewing.  When I pin, I like to pin from the inside out so that the head of the pin is close to me, and away from the raw edge. The reason I do this is because I sew with my pins on, so that my fabric all stays together.

I’m going to go ahead and pin this and sew it, and we’ll be right back.

So now that I’ve gone to my machine and sewed a quarter of an inch all the way down, I’m going to undo my tube.  So, just pull from the outer edge until all your pieces come right side out. So you have your sleeve, your accent piece, and your accent piece could really be any size you want it to be. Your sleeve, your accent piece, and the body of your quilt.

And so, now I’m  just going to give it a good press, and then I will square off my edges, my selvages, get rid if my selvages. And that’s gonna make my pillow case nice and straight. Once you do that, we’re gonna show you how to do some French seams. So, I’ll be right back.

So, to make a French seam, you’re going to take your two pieces and with wrong sides together, go ahead and seam it, or sew it straight down, about a quarter of an inch. And then on the bottom as well, about a quarter of an inch. You’ll turn the pillow case inside out and the, you will stitch again 5/8^ths of an inch this time, and again, all the way down, and across. And then turn your pillow case and it will be done. So, I’m going to show you how to do that.

Take your pins, and it’s really important that you pin the intersection where your accent piece is, so that they line up. Once you sew, you’re, your seam is in.  And you may have to wiggle that a little bit, to get it nice and straight.  And don’t forget to backstitch or to tack at the beginning of your seam, because that’s a stress point. And so, since you’re gonna be putting the pillow case in and out, you’ll be able to tear that seam, so always make sure that you tack that. I like to do pillowcases for birthday parties. You an put the birthday gifts inside the pillowcase and pillowcases nowadays, as an inexpensive are less expensive than buying bags, and tissue, and birthday cards and all that good stuff. So I’ll make this to go with my beautiful quilt on my backdrop, when I did the intro.

So, I’m going to go to my sewing machine, and stitch a quarter of an inch down and across, and I’ll be right back.

So I have stitched it, and I have turned my pillow case inside out with the outside or with the inside faced out now, and  I’m going to go back to the sewing machine, and stitch going down the same length that I stitched before, out down this way and down the bottom of the pillow case. I do want to show you a trick I learnt a long time ago on the back tacking your seams.  So let’s follow me to the sewing machine.

I’ve changed my quilting foot from a ¼ inch foot to a regular foot so that I can catch a bigger seam.  And I’m going to line that up with either my 5/8^th or my ½ inch. I’ve got a pretty skinny ¼. So I’m going to go with the ½ inch seam guide here.  And I’m gonna start with the pillow case and, a little bit further so that I can go backwards first, and then go forward. This way it will tack it, but it won’t have such a big seam that the thread’s gonna look bad. So, I’m gonna go back, and then I’m gonna go forward. And keep that all the way until you come across, down and across. When you get to the bottom, stop about a ½ inch to 5/8 of an inch, you put your needle down and pivot, your fabric.  We only have to do the side and the bottom because we have a fold on this side. Once you have sewn side and bottom, cut your threads, turn your pillow case inside out again. Now I always try and grab the corners of my pillowcase, so that I have a nice little area there, a little point there. Do the same thing with the other side. If I can find it. And you now have a cute pillowcase to go with your quilt.

And there you go.

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.

Hi there. Today’s segment is on pressing. And, so I’ve taken two units. These are 2-inch units, and I have sewn them down the long side. And I want to press towards my darker side. So, here are my two fabrics. And I’m going to lay the piece that I’m pressing towards, on top. And I’m just going to go ahead and give that a nice press, I’m setting my seam. Once I’ve set my seam, you wanna to pick up that fabric, and you want to smoosh it out, just holding it down firmly, for about 2 or 3 seconds, and then pick it up. Once you have done that you can see, you have a nice flat seam, there are no bubbles. It is nice and flat. And you will be ready to start your cutting again.

Thanks for watching. We’ll see you soon.

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

This is our first of our many instructional videos. So, be sure to check back often for new clips.

So meet your selvages together, and give it a nice press, pressing just up and down, getting rid of any creases that the fabric might have.

So, we’re learning how to get a perfect cut, and the tools that I like to use are :

• A 12 ½ Square
• A 6 ½ by 24, it could be an 8 ½, but I really like the 24 length. That’s really what I’m looking for (6 ½ x 24 ½ Quilting Ruler), and
• A Rotary Cutter (45mm). I like to use the 45 mm, it just fits better in my hand. 60 mm’s are nice for, when you are going through multiple layers.

So let’s get started. And we have taken the fabric over to the Ironing board, we have met our selvages. Very important to get that grain to sit nice and straight. We’re going to lay it on our mat. I am using a 24 by 36 size mat (24 x 36 Cutting Mat) for the length and the width. The bigger the mat, the easier it’s going to be for me to get a nice perfect cut because of the room that you have. So we’re going to take the 12 ½ inch Ruler and lay it right on top of our fold, ensuring that we have a nice straight edge. What you’re looking for, is to make sure that that fold is nice and straight. If your fold is not nice and straight, take it back to your ironing surface and give it another good press. That usually will take care of uneven folds.

Take your long Ruler and we’re going to but that Ruler right next to that 12 1/2. Once you have done that then you can slide that Square away, but maintain your hand holding down nice and firm on the long Ruler. We are now ready to square up our side or to get an even cut on our side.

We’re going to take our Rotary Cutter, expose the blade and start. When you hold your Rotary Cutter, you want to put your index finger on these little knobs. While holding firmly down, you wanna put your body weight in too. I’m going to be cutting halfway till about the 12 inch line and re-position my hands. And I’ll show you how to do that now.

Start at the very bottom with your body weight, go ahead and go just to about the 12 inch line. I do this so that my Ruler will not move as I’m going all the way through to the end. So I’m gonna re-position my hand by removing my left hand while laying my right, and then I can go ahead and move my hand back up again. And then I’m going to pick it up at the, about the 11 inch line and continue all the way to the end. Before I lift my left hand, I’m also going to ensure that I have cut through my layers. Once I’ve ensured that that’s done, then I can go ahead and take my left hand out. Its very important that you do that, so that your Ruler does not move too many times if you start down here. Because your hand is further down at the bottom, there is no weight on the ruler, and that’s what causes the ruler to move. Another reason for the ruler to move is, if it doesn’t have grips or sand paper dots. Another good idea to add to your ruler, if your ruler does not have those sand paper grips or dots.

We are going to be cutting a 4 ½ inch strip. So again, what you want to do is take your ruler and find that 4 ½ inch line or measurement. There’s my 4 ½ inch line. So I’ve laid my ruler so that the 4 ½ inch measurement is lined up on the edge of my fabric and I’m also making sure that my fold is nice and straight. So there’s my line ensuring that that’s nice and straight.

Rotary cutter, you also wanna make sure that when you hold your ruler down, you also wanna put a little bit of section on it. You also don’t want to hold your ruler down with your hand like this because again, it might possibly scooch on you. Give it a good grip. And once again, we’re going to start at the bottom. I always start a little bit before my fabric so that I know that I’ve cut through that fold. Going to go up again to about the 12 ½ inch line, take my right hand and re-position my left hand. I’m never, never do I want to go backwards with my Rotary cutter because you end up cutting, and getting little slivers all through. So make sure that you start at the 12 ½ where you left off, and go completely forward towards, away from you.

Once again, I’m gonna ensure that my, I’ve cut through my layers, and then I can take my hand out.

And that is how you get a perfect cut.