Quilt and bind the Curling Rocks Quilted Runner

Thanks for following along this week! If you’ve done your homework each day (grin) then you’ll be ready to quilt and bind your Curling Rocks Quilted Runner today. If not, simply go back to the posts you need to create the Curling Stone Blocks and to put together the runner top.

If you did the bonus homework last night (grin) then your binding is ready to go! If not that’s okay too. Take a few moments now to get it ready before we change our machine needle.

Sew your binding strips together to make a continuous binding strip; I usually do this at a 45 degree angle, trim to a 1/4″ seam allowance at each joint and press the seams open.

Now we can change to a quilting needle. I honestly just started to change my needle consistently and have consistently seen better stitches. Huh, imagine that!

After you change your needle you can change your thread – if you want to. I recommend a color that blends in with your background fabric. I used a variegated grey thread for quilting 🙂

If you have a walking foot, you can switch to it now too.

Assemble the runner

Lay the backing right side down and secure it so it can’t move (painter’s tape works well).

Put the batting on top – check for and remove any excess strings or pet hair from the batting you can see; the runner has a light background and dark strings/hair might show through!

Place the runner on top of the two layers, centering it or at least ensuring some of the other two layers are exposed 1-2″ all the way around the runner.

Depending on how you choose to quilt the runner, put in your pins to secure the layers. I found for this project that I was moving pins as I quilted and that’s okay on a small size project like this.

Quilt the runner

I don’t have much sage advice here. Relax and enjoy the process. Don’t overwhelm yourself – or the project – with quilting that’s too complicated.

I’ll tell you a secret – I used the design on the background fabric to help me space my quilting lines. Why not! I quilted straight lines about 1/2″ apart in the middle of the runner.

I went around – in the ditch – each of the curling stones and in between each of the grey sections of the stone.

When you’re finished quilting, remove the pins and trim the backing and batting even with the runner top.

Easy. Done. Next!

Bind the runner

Bind your runner using your preferred method. For this one I chose to use my sewing machine, sewing the binding to the backing first then folding it over and sewing it to the front using a decorative machine stitch. I learned this method from Pat Sloan and she has a great video to watch if you need a little convincing to try it out.

Pat Sloan’s Machine Binding Video

I used black thread on the spool and left the variegated grey thread in the bobbin. With machine binding, the bobbin line of stitching will show on the back, but by choosing a thread that blends in my stitching becomes an accent – instead of an eyesore!

Curling season is still going strong and it’s my hope you quilt and bind your Curling Rocks Quilted Runner in time to enjoy it – along with the curling!