Simple Tied Quilt Tutorial

Very easy peasy, if I do say so myself. I've been meaning to make a quilt for my older son's *new* bed, since he's decided he wanted to sleep in his baby brother's room. If you read my post from the other day, maybe you'll understand why I just had to throw up my hands and do something completely NOT on the list. This felt good, and what's nicer is it only took the day. I would also like to thank everyone for their kind thoughts and supportive email and advice given. It felt good to get it all out- the response was icing on the cake.

Now for the project:

I am using Queen Anne's Lace fabric in a cotton/linen blend. It's backed in 100% linen and the quilt batting is 100% Bamboo. I also used exactly one skien of embroidery floss, for which you may need more or less depending on your project size.

Because of the linens, this has a very nice heft to it- more like a thick coverlet. Can easily be made with ANY fabrics.

You can make this any size you want- with our without piecing obviously, but to keep in the spirit of "easy", I just used a single panel of fabric on both sides.

One of your panels will have to be at least 4 inches larger in both directions. No binding tapes are used in the making of this "easy" quilt. It's self-bound. Simple, right?

OK, follow me!

 

1. Lay out your batting first, then lay the top layer of fabric over it so that it is centered within. Put a few pins along the edges to keep it from shifting.

2. Trim the batting to the exact size of the top fabric.

3. Add more pins in the center area to keep every thing in place. Loosely roll up the fabric in a way that will make it easy to unroll on top of the backing fabric (details to follow).

4. I taped my backing fabric to the table because the linen was very slippery. If you're working on a rug, you probably don't need to do this.

5. Unroll and center your topper onto the backing and make sure to have at least 2 inches excess on all sides. Anything larger, should be trimmed to 2 inches.

6. Starting in the center of each side and working your way to the corners, fold the excess fabric from the backing over and snuggly up against the edges of the topper- making sure not to pull the fabric, but giving it a nice crease with your fingers as you go. Give it a few pins just to keep it all in place.

7. Again working from the center of each side to the corners, fold the excess under itself to create a 1" finished "binding" and pin well in place.

8. To create neat-ish corners, I did a lazy mitering job, but it worked. Where the fabrics met in the corners, I pinched them together, snipped a bit of the excess, then tucked and folded until it resembled a halfway decent miter. I'm sure there are many ways to achieve this, but, you know, this is s'posed to be easy!

9. Topstitch* from the top side 1/8"from edge of binding. I went back and topstitched the corners last. Trim threads. 

* Let's put this in the "Where Have I Been?" section of my life... finally found out about the walking foot attachment for my sewing machine *angels sing, the heavens open and light is cast upon me*

10. Mark and pin (I did this by making a cross-hair with two pins) for the ties that will be made. I spaced mine about 6.5" apart. I will only ever dry clean this quilt, so I didn't concern myself with doing too much tying, but if you think it might get washed a lot, I'd probably space the ties every 4" or so. Not more, though.. probably overkill.

11. I used embroidery floss and the appropriate needle with the knot on the top side. The reason I made cross-hairs with the pins is so I could make a neat X on the backside, and the pins made it easier to keep the fabric from moving while giving me a little guide to stitch within. You DO NOT have to do this. You can simply tack it with a single pass of the needle or you could go crazy and stitch little hearts or something. Likewise, you could do some tacking on your sewing machine... It's really up to you and how much thought and effort you want to put into it. It's important to make square knots here, because the floss has a tendency to unravel. Also, from experience, even a square knot can slip undone, so be sure to leave enough floss so that you can retie the knot without causing yourself too much grief.

Done!