Been busy quilting for Christmas!

My all time favorite quilt shop owner, Dawn, of Traditions Quilt Shop in Baker City, Oregon gave me the directions (over the phone mind you) for a new look on making binding. I called her for information about machine binding my quilt. I have too many quilts to get the binding on for Christmas and I knew I had to machine bind the binding in order for me to get them out in time.
Well, Dawn told me of this VERY COOL way to machine bind your binding. It is totally AWESOME!!! You use two different fabrics. I had the same fabric for the back of the quilt and for the borders so I used it for one piece of the binding. So, you cut one fabric 1 1/2" (that was my backing and borders fabric) and then you use another fabric and cut it 2". You make them just like you would for regular binding, sewing the same fabric together, end to end, to make up enough to go around your quilt. You do this with both fabrics. Here are the two fabrics I used.

Now you sew these two pieces together. The binding on the left is the fabric that's on my backing and borders. It's 1". The blue fabric is in my quilt, in the blocks, and I cut it 2 1/2".

Okay, now you fold it wrong sides together and iron it, just like when you make your binding.

Now is the tricky part. You sew it to the BACK of your quilt with the 1" piece laying on the quilt. The 2 1/2" fabric should be facing up.

So, now you turn it over and machine sew it to the front. You will see the 1" fabric and only a 1/4" piece of the 2 1/2" fabric (the blue). You sew it right between the two colors, in the ditch. It's so easy to stitch in the ditch.
Now you have an absolutely gorgeous binding. It looks like you put fabric under your binding.

See how the blue sticks out? It's a flap. I am just so thrilled to learn how to do this. I love everything about quilting except the binding part. I will tell you something I am ashamed of. I send my quilt to a friend to bind my quilts. I've been doing this for years. It costs between $20 to $35 for each quilt. That's how much I don't like binding. But now I don't have to do that anymore. For now on I am making my binding this way.
I know it takes longer because you have to cut binding from two different fabrics, and it costs more because you have to buy extra fabric for the 1" piece, and it also takes longer because you have to sew both the pieces to each other, but it looks so nice and I don't have to pay someone to do my binding.

 This is a snapshot of the edge of my "Hearts from Texas" quilt. I flew down to Austin, Texas, to see my niece last spring and she took me to "The Quilting Bee" and I bought a few quilt kits. I finally got them all done. This is such a warm, golden quilt.

I'm home alone, so I had to hang this over my ironing board. I couldn't get the whole quilt it. So this has to do.
My gal that cuts and color my hair is getting this quilt. Last time I went to her I told her I was finishing up my 7 quilts and that my kids were getting more quilts for Christmas. I told her my kids had so many of my quilts and I didn't know who to give them all to. I usually give them all away. Well, Aubrey (my hair dresser) said she didn't have a quilt. I didn't say anything to her but right then I knew I was going to give her a quilt for Christmas. She does facials and I've had two facials from her and she's done my hair twice. So I don't know her really well or anything, but when she said she didn't have a quilt, I realized that not a lot of people have quilts.
I've been quilting since 1992, so giving quilts to people for so many years must of made me think that everyone has a quilt.
Today I am going to wash it and tomorrow she won't be at work, so I am going to tie it with a long piece of fabric so it has a bow on it and leave it on her chair. I don't think I will leave a note. I think she will know it was from me. If not, that's okay. I just want her to have a quilt.