It's Been Framed

Open Sew Meets Laundry Day

15" x 19"

Sharon V. Rotz

Now that it's time to finish my quilting project, I thought it was time to try a new approach.

Instead of a traditional binding, I wanted to attempt an organic, curving edge. This could be finished off with a satin stitched edge.......... at least, it could in my head. The first step was to free motion stitch a curving line that would be my edge. I then did a open zigzag stitch over the line. The edge was trimmed as close as possible to the zigzagging. The final dense satin stitching was done over the previous stitching to complete the quilt edge.

Was I now done?

What would happen if I layered this onto another fabric, as if I was mounting my organic quilt onto a frame?

After tearing into my fabric stash, I came up with a batik that made my little quilt sing. Because my original quilt was already quilted, my border had to be quilted as well. I ended up basically making another quilt, complete with batting and quilting which would serve as my frame. The little quilt was pinned and topstitched to the center of the batik quilt. I am now finished.

Would there be another way to achieve the same effect? Of course, there is always another way. But sometimes, one step just leads to another and another. It's the fun of the adventure that lures us on.