Sunday, August 19, 2007

Adding Cording to the Border


Well, I had a LOT of colors to choose from, didn't I? These are seconds from www.VickiDayDesigns.com.
I tried many different combinations of cording colors up against the quilt and that was fun, seeing how just those thin lines of different color changed the whole look of the quilt. Orange and purple was my runner up choice...but I went with lavender and blue.

One of my favorite subjects on my son's second grade report card was "Has Control of Glue Bottle" (he got an "Average"). I had to have very good control of my glue bottle here. I didn't know if I was brave or crazy, dotting glue over stitching, ribbon, beads, anything in my path!!! It actually wasn't necessary to remove those beads...I just steamrolled right over them.
Crazy lady. The trick was not to pull too tight on my silk thread as I sewed the glued cording into place.

Here's how it looked as I smoothed the cording down. I would dot the glue for four inches, smooth it down, and move on. After one side of the quilt was glued, I sewed it on before turning the corner and traveling up the next side.

Turning the corner here. I buried my beginning and end of the cording in one of the corners and it is pretty hard to tell where.

So I'll just show you, here it is in the lower right.

The next steps will be layering the batting and false back to the backside of the top here, as I have done before, with close rows of basting stitches. This quilt has some flimsy fabrics carrying some heavy beads, and all that needs to be well supported.
But after I attach the fancy back--a screaming pink crushed velvet, I might add--over that, I am actually going to quilt in the ditch through all the layers along my 9 patch blocks. The only reason I am doing this is so that this quilt will be eligible to enter in a show that requires quilting. Crazy quilters know that this requirement keeps most of our quilts out of shows, because normally they are not quilted. But this is a small quilt so I will do it...by hand...a machine would be impossible. After that I'll cover those seams with some feather stitching.
But the blasted thing will be officially quilted!

So, lots of fussy finish work is coming at me over the next several days. It's a good time for some rock and roll..and spy movies...and The Teaching Company CDs....

7 comments :

Unknown said...

I would have loved the orange and purple but your choices seemed more harmonious! tis beautious Did amaleah like her quilt kit??

Marty52 said...

Mmmmm... seconds from Vicki Day, how lovely... you're a lucky lady! The detail you achieve is really something else! It's beautiful...

DebbyMc said...

So wonderful...I love the cording technique you used...I might have to try that...on something yet to be made...

Threadspider said...

I can't believe how much you have done over the weekend! What a fabulous piece of art this is.I love the cording-I put some purple around my centre block but using a different technique. This looks great and those U-Tube videos were really interesting.

Susan said...

That seems like just the right choice to me. I loved that the joining was seamless, so to speak!

I finished the book! I was telling my son about it, but it turned out he had read it a number of years ago, the brat!

Rian said...

Wow! What a cool edge! I would never have imagined it was done this way. I must say, if you are going to have control over something, a glue bottle is a good thing. Imagine the alternative...

Janet Stauffacher said...

It's a great-looking edge! I've seen a lot of projects over the years that have had corded edges, but they've always been invisibly stitched--too tedious for me. This edge looks terrific, and it looks like the stitching would go fairly quickly once the cords were glued down. Thanks for the information!