My planned project - and some questions

[DCampbell16B]

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Bias is a whole other ball game!

Can confirm. My wife has been an active quilter for many years. She doesn't like bias because the fabric stretches, which can make it very, very difficult to accurately meet up with the pieces cut on the square.

[OC Richard]

I don't have anything to add, only that talk of quilts and Singers brings back fond memories.

West Virginia and quiltmaking are inseparable! They almost put a quilt on the State Quarter.

When my grandmother moved in with us she brought her quilting horses and she would sew all day. I grew up with a needle and thread in my hands, knowing a Wedding Ring from a Cathedral Window.

And her old Singer! It looked like it had started life as a treadle machine, with an aftermarket motor bolted on. Maybe it had been made that way, it looked homemade to me.

And my dad drove a Singer for a time! There were cars.

[Tobus]

And her old Singer! It looked like it had started life as a treadle machine, with an aftermarket motor bolted on. Maybe it had been made that way, it looked homemade to me.

Richard, a lot of old treadle machines were retrofitted with electric motors. Singer made a big push to sell their new electric machines, but offered the retrofit kit for those who couldn't spring for the whole new package. Their catch phrase was, "It's sew easy with electricity!" I can just imagine how exciting it must have been in the early days of electricity as households started to switch over from manual methods of doing daily tasks to electric.

Oddly enough, I'm in the camp that prefers manual. Especially after the storms we went through a week ago where we lost power for 26 hours. I know that's not very long compared to real emergencies like hurricanes, but it had been a while since I had to go without power (except when camping). Even in usual times, I prefer to saw wood by hand instead of with power tools. I wash dishes by hand instead of using a dishwasher. That kind of thing. So a treadle machine is right up my alley, and if we lose power again, so much the better! I'll sew by the light of a kerosene lamp.

[Barb T]

Eeeeeeeek!!! That looks just like my treadle Singer!!! Right down to the drawer pulls!

And I have to say that there is a lot of satisfaction in running the treadle - it has a wonderful rhythmic mechanical noise rather than electrical motor noise. Never had a lick of trouble with it, which is more than I can say for the most recent, and most expensive, of the machines that I've owned since, which I would happily toss into the ditch..... It's making me want to get mine out of storage - it's been, oh......, yikes......more than 45 years since I used my treadle Singer as my only sewing machine. That was back in my hippie days in graduate school out in Colorado......Man, am I getting OLD....!

[Liam]

Can confirm. My wife has been an active quilter for many years. She doesn't like bias because the fabric stretches, which can make it very, very difficult to accurately meet up with the pieces cut on the square.

Looking at your project, I agree that the advice of an experienced quilter(s) might be beneficial.
Great project!

[Tobus]

I received the broadcloth that I intend to use for the sashing strips between the tartan patches. It's a bit more grey than I had envisioned, but I'm starting to like it. I had originally intended it to be a solid khaki or olive drab colour, but this is more like a mottled green/grey with a light nap to it. Unfortunately, my phone camera makes it look more grey than it really is and I'm not savvy enough to adjust the image back to reality. But here are some of the tartan pieces laid over the cloth, along with the green wool twill tape binding (which is a perfect match to the binding on my Seaforth kilt).

[Tobus]

One of my original questions which I'm still curious about is how one goes about installing the binding at the top of a kilt, and whether I can achieve the same effect on this quilt.

For reference, here's the top of my QOH kilt. The twill tape I have purchased is an exact match to it. I would assume that the tape is laid on the outside of the kilt, then stitched down right near the edge of the tape about 3/8" from the top of the tartan material, and then rolled over the top and stitched on the inside. This hides the edge of the twill tape and the stitching since it's folded over at the stitch line. But on my kilt, the inside stitching (i.e. inside of the kilt) is hidden by the lining so I can't see what it looks like.

Since my quilt will not have a liner that covers the binding on the bottom side (all the layers of the quilt will be enclosed by the binding), I'm wondering how to stitch the bottom side of the binding once it's rolled over the edge. What would a kiltmaker do if they were making this project and attempting to give it a clean finish? Should I just try to hand-stitch it through the bottom layer of material of the quilt without going back all the way through to the top side?

I'm also going to have to figure out how to turn a corner with the binding, something that doesn't happen on a kilt. I'll have to see what quilters typically do. I'm thinking I may end up putting rounded corners on this blanket and seeing how tight of a radius I can turn with the binding to avoid pointy corners.

[DougH]

One of my original questions which I'm still curious about is how one goes about installing the binding at the top of a kilt, and whether I can achieve the same effect on this quilt.

For reference, here's the top of my QOH kilt. The twill tape I have purchased is an exact match to it. I would assume that the tape is laid on the outside of the kilt, then stitched down right near the edge of the tape about 3/8" from the top of the tartan material, and then rolled over the top and stitched on the inside. This hides the edge of the twill tape and the stitching since it's folded over at the stitch line. But on my kilt, the inside stitching (i.e. inside of the kilt) is hidden by the lining so I can't see what it looks like.

Since my quilt will not have a liner that covers the binding on the bottom side (all the layers of the quilt will be enclosed by the binding), I'm wondering how to stitch the bottom side of the binding once it's rolled over the edge. What would a kiltmaker do if they were making this project and attempting to give it a clean finish? Should I just try to hand-stitch it through the bottom layer of material of the quilt without going back all the way through to the top side?

I'm also going to have to figure out how to turn a corner with the binding, something that doesn't happen on a kilt. I'll have to see what quilters typically do. I'm thinking I may end up putting rounded corners on this blanket and seeing how tight of a radius I can turn with the binding to avoid pointy corners.

I am by no means a quilter, but it seems to me that you could achieve the hidden rolled edge effect by attaching the binding before all the blocks are connected to the backing. Eg. stitch the binding to the blocking then fold it and pin it so that when the blocking is face down it sticks out a little beyond the edge, then line this up on the edge of the backing material and stitch around almost all of the perimeter then turn it inside out leaving only a small portion of the bottom edge perhaps for a careful visible stitch. Then come back and stitch the blocking and backing together. It would still be fairly fiddly, but depending on how broad your binding is I think you might still be able to get it on the sewing machine.

[DCampbell16B]

I will outline the procedure my wife uses (she has quilted for many years and has taught classes). I'll try to keep this in some order. Your project does differ from the usual cotton quilt as your material is much heavier. I'll try to note where that may be important or useful.
1 Sew your blocks and sashing as you wish. Note that whether you make all your blocks and sashes the same size will be important later. It is not necessary, just your preference.
2 Lay down your backing, then batting or fill (if you decide to use it). Both should be larger than your quilt top.
2a My wife uses a special frame to hold these in place. For a one off you might tape the backing to the floor and lay the batting and top over this. She does this on a table for smaller pieces.
3 Pin or baste the three parts together. My wife uses safety pins, 4 or 5 to a block. That's a lot of pins for a one off.
4 Quilt or tie your quilt. You might not be able to make this decision until you get to this point as you have a special top.
4a To quilt on your own machine you need to roll it up so it fits through the machine. You should research "machine quilting" to get an idea if you want go this route. Not trivial.
4b Have someone "longarm quilt" it for you. There are likely people near you who do tbis service.
4c Tie your quilt. This may be the way to go considering how heavy it might be, and how much you might want to do this all yourself. Again, Google is your friend.
5 Now comes the binding, after you have quilted or tied it all together. Trim the excess binding and backing down to the size of the top. Sew the binding to the front of the quilt just far enough from the edge that it won't pull out but leaves plenty of width to finish. Fold it over the edge and around so that you can sew from the back. Doing it this way hides the seam under the binding.
5a Because you have a tape to use for binding you don't have to fold it under in the back if you dont want to. What my wife does, because she uses cut fabric not tape, is sew in front as above, fold over to the back, fold the raw edge under and hand sew the binding down. Tbis way no seam shows on the front. With your tape you do not necessarily need to fold the edge under in the back, or the front for that matter. It depends on whether you don't want a seam to show on the front. Be aware that if you don't fold it under in front, machine sew it down, and try to machine sew from the back, your two seams are not likely to line up.
As far as handling the corners, to make them sharp, just give yourself a little extra tape and fold it into a little reverse hat that hides inside the binding. That's a long way off yet.

Full disclosure: I have not vetted this with my wife.

Good luck and keep us posted!

[Liam]

I don't know how many times over the years the years I have had people comment "what a lovely quilt you are wearing".
I used to smile and say "kilt", now I just smile.