This week, like all others, was great working with familiar products and new tools and notions. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I’d say it was the Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box filled with 12 shades of denim thread. Yesterday, I showed you how to baste a quilt using safety pins, and how quilting with parallel line stitches makes things interesting. Today, we’re binding the quilt.

To make the binding for the quilt, I need 2½” strips. I can get these strips from leftover denim from the pant legs I cut earlier this week, or from another pair of old jeans. The length of the strip depends on the length of the pant leg. Looking at what I have, it looks like the average length is 25”. With the quilt measuring 56” x 70”, I calculated 10 or 11 strips should be enough.

Take a pant leg and lay it flat, and square off two sides with the Omnigrip 8¹⁄₂″ x 24″ ruler.

With two edges of the pant leg squared off, make a 5” wide strip using the full length of the pant leg.

From the 5” wide strip cut two 2½” strips.

On both edges of the strips make a 45^o line.

Using the 45^o lines at the end of the strips as a guide, sew all strips together as shown in the following photo.

Once all seams are completed, trim ¼” away from the seam.

Press seams open using an Oliso Pro TG1600 Pro Plus Smart Iron.

Fold the binding lengthwise, and wrong side together and press the full length.

Sew the binding on the back of the quilt.

To reduce bulk in the corners, snip off the corners of the quilt.

Fold the binding over the edge of the quilt and use UNIQUE Quilting Small Clever Clips to hold the binding in place.

From the top of the quilt, sew down the binding using thread from the Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box.

The denim quilt is completed.

So many great notions were used this week. Using the OLFA 60mm Deluxe Ergonomic Handle Rotary Cutter to cut through multiple layers of jeans was the best tool to do the job. Decorating the quilt with threads from the Gütermann Denim Love Nostalgia Box was a fun adventure. Now I’m looking forward to starting another project using old jeans.

This is part 5 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 4: Parallel line stitching: A fun way to add interest to your quilt