Yesterday on QUILTsocial, I showed you how to use fat quarters from your stash to make amazing quilt backings. I used fat quarters from the FABRIC CREATIONS Fabric Bundle (5pcs) – Summertime Paris – 45 x 53cm (18in x 21in) and also used up leftover blocks from the quilt tops and strips of the leftover receiving blankets to create one-of-a-kind quilt backs for the two receiving blanket quilts.
Now that the quilts have been machine quilted, the next thing I’ll do is trim them, and I’ll show you 7 things you should do after you trim your quilt.
It’s best to trim your quilt on a large table or cutting board that has a large cutting mat on it. I love my UNIQUE Double Sided Cutting Mat – 24″ x 36″ (60 x 90cm) for this job as it gives me lots of room to use both my OMNIGRID Ruler – 6″ x 12″ (15.2 x 30.5cm) and my OMNIGRID Ruler – 121⁄2″ x 121⁄2″ (31.75 x 31.75cm) to trim the edges and make sure that the corners of the quilt are square.
Use a large square ruler to trim the edges of the quilt and make the corner square.
Now that the quilts are trimmed, what should you do next? Of course, the first thing is to add binding, but the other things you should do might surprise you.
- Add the binding.
I’ll cut the FABRIC CREATIONS 100% Cotton Fabric – Gray – 1.8 x 1m (2yds x 42in) into six 2½” x WOF strips and use them to make binding for the teal quilt and do the same with the FABRIC CREATIONS 100% Cotton Fabric – Pink – 1.8 x 1m (2yds x 42″) and use them to make binding for the pink quilt.
Cut binding fabric into 2½” strips.
For quilts that will get a lot of use, I like to sew my binding to the back of the quilt and then flip it to the front and machine topstitch it. You can use your preferred binding technique, here are two posts to give you some options: 2 ways to machine stitch a binding on a quilt and Perfect quilt binding by hand, perfect quilt binding by machine.
- Add a label.
Everyone will tell you that you should label your quilts, and they’re right, but sometimes you just don’t want to spend a lot of time doing it. In my QUILTsocial post on November 11, 2016, I showed you the steps to making a fast and easy permanent label for your quilt.
The quilt label after it has been sewn on.
- Make a scrappy binding.
After I finish sewing on my bindings, I sew the leftover pieces together to make scrappy bindings! In my April 20, 2018, QUILTsocial post, I shared easy ways to organize and use up leftover quilt bindings. In the seven years since that post, I’ve used up some of these bindings and added more to them and, as a result, just recently had to upgrade to a bigger box. If you group together similar colors, you’ll eventually find a use for these colorful leftovers.
Sew leftover bindings that are similar colors together to make scrappy bindings.
- Cut up the trimmings from the quilt.
Sometimes, when you trim a quilt, you’ll end up having lots of batting and fabric scraps that can be used for other projects. After I trim my quilts, I separate the batting from the fabric trimmings and cut them in different ways.
I cut the long narrow pieces of batting into 2¼” strips. I cut the larger pieces of batting into squares and rectangles. Fabrics get cut into 2½”, 3″ or 4″ squares or larger rectangles.
Trimmings from the quilt are cut into strips and squares.
- Make small quilt sandwiches.
These small rectangles of fabric and batting are often the perfect size for making small quilt sandwiches that can be used to practice free-motion machine quilting. You can also do a different quilting design on each sandwich and make a sample book like I showed how to make in my QUILTsocial post on August 29, 2014, titled Finishing Up Our Free-Motion Quilting Sample Book.
To make these small sandwiches, select two fabric pieces and one piece of batting that are similar sizes. Spray one side of the batting with Odif 505 Temporary Quilt Basting Adhesive Fabric Spray – 156g and then place one of the fabrics on top, right side up. Smooth out the wrinkles, then flip it over and repeat on the other side. Keep these sandwiches beside your sewing machine so that they are handy for testing out new quilting designs.
Use 505 Spray to make quilt sandwiches from scraps of batting and fabric.
- Make scrap quilts
After you’ve cut your trimmings into small squares, keep them organized in small plastic bins that are labelled with the size of the squares. When you have enough squares in a bin, take them out and make up a scrap quilt (or two). Since you won’t have to do any cutting, the quilt will go together quickly and be one-of-a-kind.
Labelled plastic bins work well for keeping scrappy squares organized.
- Make jelly roll rugs
A few years ago, Jelly Roll Rugs were all the rage in the quilting world. I’ve made a few, and they turned out so cute. I save up all the 2¼” strips of batting that I cut from my quilt trimmings and sew them end to end with a zigzag stitch. I put them in a bin and they are ready to go when I want to use them along with 2½” strips of fabric to make rugs, bags, placemats and more.
Use strips of batting and fabric to make fabric tubes for rugs or bags.
If you want to make a jelly roll project and haven’t yet accumulated enough strips of batting, you can also buy a roll of BOSAL Katahdin Batting Strip – 6.35cm x 22.86m (21⁄2″ x 25yds) that is all ready to use.
Here are my finished receiving blanket quilts. My friend was super happy with how they turned out, and within an hour of picking them up from me, she had already delivered them to her two nieces. I guess the rest of the family loved them, too.
The completed receiving blanket quilts.
I hope that you enjoyed learning how to make quilts from receiving blankets this week and now you know 7 things to do after you trim your quilt. Having great tools like a UNIQUE Double Sided Cutting Mat – 24″ x 36″ (60 x 90cm), an OMNIGRID Ruler – 6″ x 12″ (15.2 x 30.5cm), an OMNIGRID Ruler – 121⁄2″ x 121⁄2″ (31.75 x 31.75cm) and OLFA RTY-2/GP5 – Printed Handle Rotary Cutter 45mmand a OLISO PROTM TG1600 Pro Plus Smart Iron – Tula PinkTM made the quilting process quick and fun. I used the fat quarters from FABRIC CREATIONS Fabric Bundle (5pcs) – Summertime Paris – 45 x 53cm (18in x 21in) to make both quilts, but having them turn out so differently was great. See you next time on QUILTsocial.
This is part 5 of in this series
Go back to part 4: Creative quilt backing ideas using fat quarters from your stash