A GOOD WAY TO....

Here's a good way to control a long strip of binding while applying it to a quilt:

I've posted this some time ago, but it's such a neat trick I thought it worthwhile to repost.  After the binding is made and pressed in half, roll it up and slip it under a leg of your sewing table.  It stays put and unrolls just as needed.  Works like a charm!  And yes, that is the "Entwined" quilt all finished and being bound.  Now it just needs a label and it's ready to be given to our daughter and her husband.

I had a lot of fun yesterday: I was demonstrating Split Nine Patch blocks at the Fabric Nook, our local source for everything quilty and sewing supplies.  They had had one of my Split Nine Patch lap quilts hanging up for quite a while and had received several comments of "how is that made?"  So Brenda and I decided I would spend a day making Nine Patch blocks there, with an instructional hand-out available.  We did that yesterday.

You can see the 2' x 3' portable design board made out of rigid pink insulation and some batting.  It worked very well to keep things organized as we went along.  Here are 3 1/2 12" blocks that are finished.  Two of them have been moved to the design board above the cutting table.  I'll make 20, I think for a 4 x 5 setting.  

I cut all the 2 1/2" and 3" squares ahead of time and had them sorted by size and dark/light in four separate containers.  We had fun choosing which fabrics to use where, and the blocks seem to have turned out very nicely.

The Fabric Nook is located in the local IDA and is a very good source for quilters and home sewers.  If it were not here, we'd have to drive an hour to buy a spool of thread.  So anything I can do to help them thrive, I will!