I love reaching this stage in quiltmaking. My cherry blossom quilt has been pieced, quilted, and trimmed. Now it’s time for the binding. For this quilt my bias binding strips were cut 2½” wide and I’m sewing the binding on with a ⅜” seam. I usually favor a quarter-inch binding but I wanted this lovely green stripe to stand out a bit more. The stripes remind me of blades of grass — yet another reminder of spring and very fitting for the name I have given this quilt, Celebrating Spring.

When it came time to join the ends of the binding, I figured it would be possible to match the stripes with careful cutting and stitching, especially because the stripes are very narrow. Notice where I made bias cuts in the left and right hand tails of the binding:

By playing around with binding scraps beforehand, I determined that the tails, when cut this way, would produce an almost invisible seam without interrupting the design. See what you think:

The seamline should be subtle but obvious. If you don’t see it right away, look at the left “dog ear” — that triangle sticking up along the raw edge.

After stitching the rest of the binding to the quilt and then turning the binding away from the quilt, the seamline is even harder to see:

Just in case you don’t see it, look at the very tip of the bamboo stiletto:

Now I can sit back and enjoy the slow process of tacking the binding by hand to the back of the quilt:

Happy First Day of Spring!

The vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere occurs tonight at 11:06 pm EDT. (Thanks to this being a Leap Year, the equinox is earlier than usual. Since spring is my favorite season, having it come early makes me very happy.)  And what a glorious day it has been: sunny in Portland OR with a few scattered clouds and a high of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I celebrated indoors and out.

Outdoors? The Dear Husband and I spent a few hours weeding in the back yard garden. Telling the truth now: I really wasn’t celebrating. I am, after all, a Reluctant Gardener. But the beds we cleared look so good now that I can’t help but be glad about that. And the DH planted potatoes!

Indoors, I added the narrow border to my current Work-in-Progress. Check it out:

Right now my quilt top measures 51″ x 63″. The additional light pink floral I need for the outer border should arrive in the next day or so.

In the meantime, I started working on my pieced backing. I put those two duplicate blocks I wrote about yesterday on point and added setting triangles, using a pink polkadot fabric I found in my stash:

I made the setting triangles oversize in case I want to float the blocks (which I probably will).

By the way, I’m not the only one enjoying cherry blossoms. Mine are on my fabric but featured on the front page of today’s daily Oregonian newspaper is a photo of the beautiful blooms “popping with color” along Portland’s waterfront park.

Hmm. I named this post “Celebrating Spring.” Maybe that should be the name of this quilt. . . What do you think?

The interior of my current WIP is complete. Take a look:

How pretty is that? I am loving the springtime vibe of these cherry blossom prints.

As I was laying out the blocks, I noticed a few of the center squares were cut from the same part of the pattern repeat. It was easy enough to simply rotate a block or move it to another part of the quilt. Before I started sewing, I looked again across each row, up and down each column, and even on the diagonal. I was sure I had a good distribution all around.

However . . . after sewing the blocks into rows and then sewing the rows together, I could see duplicates in one vertical and one horizontal row. The blocks weren’t touching each other and perhaps no one would ever notice but . . . I did. So of course I made two more blocks to replace the duplicates. I’ll probably put the dupes on the back of the quilt.

I ordered more of the light pink floral for the outer borders because I want a wider strip than the pattern calls for. The instructions also call for a narrow first border of the larger floral print but I want something that reads more lilke a solid. I just happened to find a good candidate in my stash, one that I’ve had for oh, at least 20 years. I auditioned it with the other fabrics . . .

. . . and I think it works perfectly. I hope you do, too!