EPP.101 - Finishing your Quilt

Today I'm finally sharing my last post in my EPP.101 series - finishing! I'll share briefly how, once I remove all the papers, I press, baste, trim and bind my English Paper Pieced Quilt.

I was really hoping to get video footage of me removing the papers for this quilt series, but when I realised I could try and baste and bind the quilt to take away with me for quilting on a weekend retreat, I took the opportunity and removed papers and prepared the quilt for travel late into the evening. But I still have it on my list of things to do for my next quilt, promise!

Once you've removed all your papers, you'll need to press your quilt top. The picture above is of my quilt top before I've pressed it. So you'll see that after all the discussion about the pros and cons of glue/thread basting in this post, it really isn't too bad. An important point to note is that the smaller your seam allowance is, the more your fabric will puff up with peeling up from the paper.

Around the edges of your quilt, you'll need to flatten out your fabric (which will require snipping threads if you've thread basted) to provide the seam allowance you need over which to stitch the binding. Press it down to hold. Sometimes your stitches holding pieces together will prevent you from flattening it out perfectly. That's ok. Just do the best you can.

Baste your quilt sandwhich together in your usual way. I like to spray baste.

I decided to hand-quilt this quilt while away for the weekend, which makes it the perfect candidate for binding before I finish quilting it. That way, I don't get wadding fluff everywhere and my backing doesn't shift. Hand-quilting is gentle enough that you don't push the fabric too much as you quilt, and therefore don't end up with bunching at the binding. I hand-quilted a couple of lines across the quilt in the pattern for extra hold and then trimmed.

Trimming an English Paper Pieced quilt takes a little more attention than your normal block quilt. Most of your seam allowances have been over the usual 1/4", or you've used scraps and not thought too much about seam allowance, or you have interlocking shapes that don't result in a flat edge. So rather than cutting in line with the edge of the quilt, you need to find the end of the seams that you've hand stitched, and trim your quilt top, wadding and binding 1/4" from that point. If you've got an uneven edge (like you would with a hexie quilt), your seam end will be further in from the edge that I show here, and you'll be cutting the overhanging hexies a 1/4" past half way.

Trim around the whole quilt, mindful of that 1/4" seam allowance.

When I opened out my quilt edges earlier on, not all of them would lie flat, so I needed to take care while attaching my binding. I stuck closely to a slightly over 1/4" seam allowance in order to catch the whole quilt top, but not eat my corners too much. For the sake of speed, I completely machine stitched my binding. I do, however, love the look of hand-stitched binding on a hand-stitched quilt. Another one for next time!

I loved taking this quilt away with me already bound. At a retreat with 30 or 40 other women, I didn't need to worry about it getting bustled or ruined. It was sturdy and tidy, and the perfect extra layer for evening discussions in an old, cold country church hall!

I'm working on a kit and proper pattern format for this quilt as we speak, so I'll share the grand finish hopefully in a week or so when we have that done!