
Edge & Finishes Session 2: Seven Funky Edges
Heather ThomasDescription
In the session Heather will show five samples of techniques that will not actually be demonstrating in the class. However, they are interesting and easy enough to grasp from a verbal description of how they are done. These techniques include the following; Frayed edge backing with dyed batting, Dyed batting, Alternating Width Zigzag, Traditional Facing and Turned Quilt Edge with hand stitching.
So in this class, like I said earlier, we're going to do actually 10 different techniques but I had so many other techniques that I really wanted to show you, so I'm just going to walk you through a few others. These are pretty simple to do and I think that just from hearing me describe the description of how they're done, you can actually use them. One of my go-to techniques is using batting that shows as the edge, and to use batting on the edge and not have it be all rumply and fray, you need to kind of seal that batting and the best way to do that is to paint the batting. So this wonderful little piece has exactly that. This violet that you see along the outside edge is the batting.
Here, the backing is blue, the front is blue, and I've made the batting larger than both of those so that it hangs out along the edge. To do that, you simply want to use a fabric paint. The one I prefer is called Dye-Na-Flow by Jacquard. You can purchase it at art supply stores. And what I do is I thin it down with equal parts water and I take my batting and I push it down into that paint, and then I work it really hard into the batting so that the batting becomes that entire color, and then I wring it out really, really well, and then I set it off to dry on a piece of plastic, kind of rumpled up, I don't flatten it out.
And the rumpling up is what gives me these dark areas with the light areas because the batting will wick the paint up and so those high areas in the rumpled batting piece are going to be darker than the low areas. When it's dry, I flatten it out and iron it and when I'm done, I have a piece of batting that has basically a finished edge to it. So when you do this, when you dye paint your battings, make sure that you cut them to the size you want to use them in so that you don't have to go in and cut those edges because then they're going to be raw again. You want to make sure that those edges finish off as you dye paint the batting. But it's a wonderful, wonderful way to add extra color to the outside edge, wonderful texture, and kind of a funkiness in shape because it's never going to be truly square, which is really kind of fun, but not if you're a perfectionist.
If you're a perfectionist, maybe this isn't your option, but if you like funkiness, this is just really, really cool. So remember, you can use batting kind of as your edging or your finish. Now, if you like things tighter and neater and more precise, then using any type of a satin stitch or a zigzag on the edge can be a really good option. This little piece has just that. It's just a zigzag instead of a satin stitch.
A satin stitch is moving that zigzag really, really close together so you see no fabric in between the stitch lines, whereas here you see plenty of fabric between the stitch lines. I wanted to repeat that look, and so I brought that zigzag in here and used it between the body of the quilt and the borders or edging of the quilt, and then I finished off with a zigzag on the edge. This is perfect for a little quilt that I'm going to bring out once or twice a year when I'm throwing a party or something 'cause this is my little celebrate party quilt. It's not a edging that I would use on a quilt that's going to be laundered because it's not going to be tight enough and you're going to get some fray along that edge, but it's a great way to finish up a little wall quilt. And I needed a sign for a booth I was doing and my business name at the time was Art plus Cloth.
And I finished up my little sign, got it all ready, and decided I was going to do a satin stitch along the edge. Well, my machine didn't want to cooperate, and so instead what I'd ended up doing was a freeform, free motion zigzag. So I did not set my machine on the zigzag stitch, I did not use my zigzag foot, I used my free motion foot and as I ran this underneath the machine, I simply moved the quilt back and forth like this and formed my own zigzag. So you can see that it gets larger and smaller and larger and smaller and I just kind of moved the quilt back and forth like this as I free motion stitched along the edge. I did it two or three times so that I built up all of that thread along that edge so that it would be sturdy and can handle being thrown into my bag when I go to do shows and not have to be, you know, babied at all.
So it has some great stability. You could use this, if you wanted to, on a quilt that's going to be laundered. It's got some nice sturdiness to it and the edges aren't going to come apart. Now, this is a great decorative edge, but it can be a little bit on the delicate side, so it is definitely best for any type of quilt that's going to go on the wall. It's a beaded binding, and on this particular one, I used a ribbon, and the ribbon is simply folded in half and then the half is stitched on the back of the quilt, so you can see that there's a hand stitching stitch here just through that side of the ribbon and all the way through the surface of the quilt.
Then the ribbon is pulled to the front, and as I set that down, I add beads to it. And if we have time, we'll play with this later. This is a great little edge too and it embraces the fray. I love, love, love frayed edges and frayed fabrics. It just adds such a great visual to the surface of a piece.
This quilt has a backing fabric, it has batting inside, it has a front fabric, and then it has a fabric in between that I ripped the edges of. So it's got top, then the fabric that I ripped the edges of, then the batting, then the backing. The backing was cut the exact finished size I wanted the quilt to be. I did not turn the edges, the edges on the back of the bat, bi, excuse me, the backing are raw, but the edges on the front, I made a quarter-inch bigger all the way around so that I could turn those edges under. So I turned the edges under and top stitched with my machine right along here and then I went in and did a buttonhole stitch by hand.
And when I did that, I alternated the length of the stitch so I had a short, then a long, then a short, then a long, and that made a really wonderful edge along there. And the cool thing about the fray here is that this is an ombre, I mean, not an ombre, but a woven fabric that was woven with one color in the warp and a different color of thread in the weft, so I've got two sides that have like a blue violet fray and two sides that have a green fray, which I thought was really kind of cool. But it makes a wonderful finish for this type of a small art piece. Now, in the class, we are going to be doing a facing, but the facing that we're going to be doing is a little bit non-traditional when it comes to facing. This piece has a facing on it also, which you cannot see because that's the thing about facings, you don't see them from the front, you see them from the back.
So this is the facing and this one is put on in a very traditional manner, it's actually even a double French. And so it's sewn two sides, so these two sides got put on first. Just like a regular binding, it's sewn on the front but the entire thing is pulled to the back and then it's top stitched right along the edge before this bottom portion is stitched down and that helps pull that to the back and make for a very crisp edge. After these two sides are done, then the remaining two sides are done in the same manner. This is a very good technique to do for art quilts or any type of pictorial that you don't want the visage or the idea to end.
This is just a picture of a tree that is on 17-Mile Drive in California, and I just wanted it to feel like it just kept going and so I didn't want an edge on it and so I used a facing. This is another really funky edge and it utilizes that dye-painted batting again. So this whole pink background that all of these weird funky flowers are on is dye-painted batting. Then it is set on a piece of jute which I just purchased at one of the big box stores, fabric stores. And I cut the jute to the size I wanted it to be, which was a half-inch bigger all the way around than my batting and then I kind of used a pin to fray the edges.
Then I set my finished piece on it after I'd done all the hand applique and I simply hand stitched it around that edge. So the batting itself had that finished edge because of the way I dye painted it and then this wonderful fray of this jute hanging out around the outside to frame it all in and repeat the green that's in the inside and kind of quiet down all that pink that was happening, but another really fun way to finish that edge. And finally, we're going to be doing some techniques that are very similar to this in the class. However, this one has a decorative stitch on it that I don't normally use, so I just wanted to show you this decorative stitch. This quilt, or this binding was put on, it's a single binding instead of a double fold, was put on the back and brought to the front.
One side was cut, the other side was ripped, so this is the long, ripped side here. It was set down and then I used a decorative stitch to stitch it down with. I wanted to make sure that it was wider than the normal binding so it finishes at 3/8 instead of a quarter-inch on the front to allow for that decorative stitch. And it just adds a little bit of interest to the edge, not too much, not overwhelming, and also a fun way to use some of those decorative stitches you have on your machine that you rarely ever touch. So these are just some options for you to do that are similar to some of the techniques that we're actually going to work on, but are a little bit different and just add to your variety of techniques that you can use as edges and finishes to your quilts.
So now, let's get some sewing done.
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