We Have a Winner!

Thank you to everyone who entered my blog contest by answering the question “Why Do You Quilt?”. It was really fun hearing all the different answers. There were several recurring themes….being creative; giving gifts from the heart; challenging yourself yet having fun & relaxing; being therapeutic or relieving stress; nourishing the soul, an ego booster and the friends and community found within the quilting world. Wow – I wonder how many other hobbies can offer us all of those things?? Aren’t we lucky!

Speaking of lucky, I used a random number generator and came up with our winner………Julie Thomsen!! Julie gets her choice of any of my cotton wide backings (not flannel or batiks, sorry). I’ve sent you an email, Julie, please reply with your choice of fabric and your mailing address and I’ll get your prize out to you.

And don’t forget, if you didn’t win this time, there is a 2nd way you can win. (See rules here next to the #2 symbol.) Purchase any of my wide backs during March and you will be entered into the second drawing. At the end of the month I will choose one ticket and refund the amount of that backing to the customer. Click here to shop my wide selection of quilt backings.

If you are on Facebook and have not ‘Liked’ my AndiCrafts Quilting Studio page yet, be sure and do so. You don’t want to miss out on the quilt photos, funny links, and Facebook only specials.

Tuesday Tip – Making Bias Binding

Becky asked how to make bias binding. This will be more of a tutorial than a tip, so I’ll break it up into several posts over the next few days.

The first step is to determine how much binding to make, and what size square of fabric you will need to start with.

To determine the perimeter of your quilt, add the length plus width in inches and multiply by 2. Then add about 12 inches.

formula:     (L + W) x 2 = perimeter

example:    (90 + 108) x 2 = 396 inches + 12 = 408 inches

This means you will need to make 408 inches of binding to go all the way around your quilt and have enough to join the ends. Now multiply that number by the WIDTH of your binding strips – most people cut a double fold binding at 2-1/2″ wide.

408 x 2.5 = 1020

Finally, take the square root of that result to know the size of the fabric square you will need to start with. (I don’t know how to type a square root symbol, so just pretend that I did, okay???)

Square root of 1015 = 31.94

I prefer to have a little extra than not enough, so I would start with a piece of fabric about 33 – 34 inches square.

Whew!! Is your head spinning yet from all the math??? Do we need something to clear our heads?? How about a look at some lovely new wide backing fabrics??

See the pretty colors?

Can’t you feel how soft they are?

There now, don’t you feel better? There’s nothing like a fabric fix to make everything okay……

Stay tuned – next installment will be how to easily cut the strips on the bias.

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