Binding is on and I'm on to the Diamond in the Rough.

Binding is the final touch to make your quilt complete, er, well, almost, one must always, always, always put a label on a quilt. The future needs to know the story about this quilt-who made it; when it was made; etc.

Off my soap box about the labels.

I like a 2.25 inch binding. Fold it in half and sew this all around the edge. I don't trim the batting until after I've sewn on the binding.
Sew up to the corner, all the way to the turning point, then fold back and turn the corner and begin sewing again. If you need clarity, Fons and Porter sells a great cheat sheet, tool sort of thing for this. It's laminated and well worth the money. The back shows how to make continuous binding. The card/tool also shows a great trick for sewing the binding ends together.

I'm whip stitching it to finish while watching a movie called The Good German. I'll let you know if it's any good.

The Diamond in the rough has started out as a scrap quilt (excuse my dirty floor, must quilt, not clean right now...smile). I did end up buying some more scraps to match. How crazy is that? I wanted the scrappy, coordinated look I guess. Anyway, I wanted the sashing to look scrappy and was a bit befuddled at how to accomplish this. Until I read one of my really great blog inspirations (to the right), that being the Quilting Daze Blog. Funny thing is, she admitted to using another quilter's ideas and gave her full credit for the idea. I'm now giving full credit to the Daze for her sashing technique, that I'll employ in this quilt. Is that okay? Are not all quilt blocks a rendition of another quilter's work. If not today, then certainly in the 1920's or 1930's when a lot of these blocks were designed?

Even though quilting is a craft handed down through the years, I still like my technology today. I'm a full sensory kinda gal. This is me sewing the Diamond in the Rough with my noise canceling headphones on, which are plugged into my ipod. I keep these on when my DH is watching something on TV I'm not particularly interested in. He bought them for me for Mother's Day this year-yeah DH! Notice my big radio in the background-it is my daughter's-like mother, like daughter.

Happy Quilting!