Masquerade Labels and Binding

The free motion quilting on a quilt, especially one as large as this king size one, is always the hardest and most time-consuming part for me. FMQ was the topic of my posts for  9/25/20, FMQing triangles and  10/12/20, FMQing inserts and hex centers. Finishing details like machine embroidering the labels and attaching the binding do take an effort but a much more manageable one than free motion quilting  – most of the time. I wanted blue grosgrain ribbon for the labels on Masquerade, but, as luck would have it, I did not have any. Normally I would just dash into my local craft store and have them measure out ½ or ¾ yard for me. But, during this pandemic, I am not leaving my home for anything non-essential; plus, the store I would use does not regulate its customer traffic safely enough for my satisfaction at this contagious time. Fortunately, there is almost always the option of purchasing online, partnered with mail delivery or curbside pickup. So to cut two labels, each about 10" long, I needed to ordered an entire roll of blue grosgrain ribbon – 25 yards of it! It was $10 for the whole roll so the price was not that bad. Maybe I can ribbon weave some pillow covers with the non-trivial length of leftovers. But then I would need a second color - no? This thought process reminds me of the book If You Give a Mouse a  Cookie.

Having some extra was good. It was not until the fifth attempt was I successful in embroidering the quilt name and date. My first attempt was progressing great but the thread broke before the file "0" of "2020". When I tried just adding another digit I goofed, and the letter "M" from the beginning of the word appeared instead. On try #2 the thread broke after 7 letters of the 15 character phrase; on try #3, the thread broke almost immediately. I rethreaded my machine top thread, removed the bobbin and cleaned and oiled the area before reinserting the bobbin. Perhaps the eye of the needle was too small or had a burr? I changed from an 80/12 to a 90/14 machine needle. On try #4 the entire phrase came out fine – almost. It appeared to me the second character, the "A", was slightly squashed so it read as MISQUERADE. Perhaps I was constraining the free flow of the ribbon somehow. Since I tend to be fussy, I decided to try one more time. Lo and behold, attempt #5 was a winner! MASQUERADE_2020. I was able to embroider my name exactly as I had wanted it on the first try, the bottom most label in the following photo. Whew! I had visions of using up the bulk of that 25 yards.

For the quilt binding I wanted to do the flanged binding, first because I like the crisp look and second because I did not want to hand stitch (88 + 92 + 88 + 92) = 360 inches along the perimeter. There is a full tutorial on this binding technique at Susie's Magic Binding. I've used it previously on my Fun Guys quilt (6/17/15 post), my E_I_E_I_O quilt (12/9/15 post), and my Whirligiggles quilt (3/23/20 post). For a ⅜" wide binding with an ⅛" flange I cut a white strip 1⅝" and a striped strip 1⅜" wide then sewed them along their length with a ¼" seam. I chose the black and white stripe as the main binding fabric as a graphic accent.  To me black and white fits in with a masked ball.

I made sure to stagger the bias seams of the two fabrics when I joined them, eventually...

... nearing the end. Finally!

Pressing along the 10 yard length of the binding took three passes of the iron: once to set the seam, once again to press it open, and a third time to fold it in half revealing the ⅛ flange.

At the tapered end of the ironing board, the length of binding kept slipping off to the front or back. The pressing process went much more smoothly merely by placing a square board with a straight edge over the pointy end of the board. Then the binding was able to hang straight down from each end of the ironing board.

I used Clover Wonder Clips® to hold the folded over binding and checked periodically for a uniform ⅜" width with a hemming gage.

Using a stitch-in-the-ditch foot, I sewed within that white flange all around the quilt. The bunched up quilt made quite a pile on the surface of my sewing cabinet.

Along the edges with the inserted isosceles triangles, here is the way the binding looked. The white thread is neatly camouflaged within the white flange. The parallel quilting lines in the triangular inserts were spaced apart a similar amount to the stripes on the binding. For the binding around the four quilt corners, I navigated two 120° angles at each of the four corner hexagons. 

I put the labels on the back in the lower two corners, angled to parallel one edge of the corner hexagon. The two corners are folded in to meet each other in the next photo.

It is about time to reveal the completed quilt, right? As soon as I put on the hanging sleeve I will be able to display it all at once, take some pictures, and publish my final post on Masquerade. I am so looking forward to completing this one!