Before I show the tutorial about tying off a simple quilt-I have to talk about Mecozy. Multi-talented artist Kerstin Svendsen makes quilted tea cozies. Yes, I said quilted tea cozies. They are minimal and wonderful and so lovely-please go take a look at her shop. She also has a nice weblog (and thanks for the mention, Kerstin!)
okay-here's the visuial tutorial on tying off a quilt-which was mentioned last week as a way to keep your precious fabric intact beacuse you are too in love with it to cut it up.
Pretend this is a big quilt, not the small little thing I'm showing for this demo-Layer the backing, batting and top, and smooth out. Then pin no less than 6" apart in rows and columns. This will take a long time-smooth as you go and tell puckering to take a hike- If you have created quilt blocks, you can pin at the corners and in the middle of each block.
Next-using yarn (you can also use embroidery floss) stick the needle through all 3 layers at each pinned spot. Go up and down, and then to the next pinned spot-leave the long strand in-between. You will cut at the end, just keep sewing. When you have all your pinned spots sewn through, cut the yarn in the middle of each section-so you have tails to tie in a square knot.
Tie each in a square knot and then trim, leaving about 1/2" tail-
here's the back-you can see the little spots where the yarn has gone through. If you really don't want anything distracting from your lovely top fabric-you can tie the knots on the back. Then the front will look like this (of course, you can also match the yarn to the fabric, so it won't show as much)
Here is a lovely vintage quilt of mine that has been tied off. You can see the yarn tails where the points match up. Now you just have to bind the quilt and you are done! Binding is it's own subject-and I suggest a book for this. There are several ways to do it, so there is no need to re-invent the wheel and make up your own way (which I am always tempted to do and always regret!) I like this book-but any book that covers binding should help-checking one out from the library is a great way to go, too. Hope this helps and send me photos of your whole cloth quilts if you try this!
