Monday, January 28, 2013

Adding a Hanging Sleeve Under Your Quilt Binding

One of my favorite ways of adding a hanging sleeve to a quilt is to sew the top of it under the binding, making it a permanent part of the quilt. For this wall hanging I am using a 5 inch strip for the sleeve. For a larger quilt, or a competition quilt I would make it 8 1/2 inches.

I narrow hem the ends, then press the sleeve almost in half, leaving about 1/2 inch extra to build some slack into the sleeve so the quilt will hang better on the rod.

I then fold the sleeve raw edges together and baste to the back of the quilt with the short side facing the quilt. I will hand stitch the fold to the back of the quilt after binding.



 
 
I then stitch the binding on in the usual way - for me, that's machine stitched to the back, then top-stitched on the front.  This also works if you are machine stitching to the front, just be careful not to catch a fold of the sleeve in the process of machine stitching.  This is a nice, quick way to add a sleeve since you don't have to hand stitch it on both sides!
 
 
And here is the quilt that was being finished up!  This was supposed to be my entry for the second Project Quilting challenge this year.  I didn't get it done in time, but I did finally finish today - isn't it pretty?  Available in my Etsy Shop


1 comment:

Tracy Evelyn said...

Love the finished quilt!
Also, I nominated you on my blog for the Liebster award! Do it or don't, just thought it was fun :)

Tracy