JOY! + A Brown-Bagging Tutorial

Eight days until Christmas and I finished the Christmas decoration I made for myself - that's a Christmas miracle!

We mixed up our Christmas decorating this year and I love it!  The tree is huge and shaggy and twice the size we normally get but with the rearranged furniture it fits the room far better than any other tree we've had.  Normally the coffee table is displaying decorations, but this year it's just a coffee table so I decided it needed to be a little more festive.  The Joy pattern caught my eye and I knew instantly it was exactly what I wanted for this project. My table runner is made from 100% scraps - the white letters are leftover from my Snowflake quilt, the green center (and backing!) are from last year's Holiday quilt, the solid green is from my solids stash, and the rest came from my green scrap drawer.  I dug through everything and only picked scraps that were green on green (or very close!).  I sized it to fit comfortably on the table with a center section large enough to fit the wooden bowls I wanted to place there.

When it came time to finish this one, I decided I wanted to brown-bag it.  I don't often add borders to my work and in this case the green border was what I wanted to be on the outside so a binding seemed superfluous.  I've struggled in the past to get larger items to brown-bag without puckers or folds, but this time it turned out perfectly!

Here's a quick tutorial with some of the most boring pictures possible to show you how I did it.  This isn't really any faster than a traditional basting and binding, but it gives you a nice clean edge AND you can have rounded corners without making bias binding!  Win win!

First, cut out a piece of batting that is slightly larger than your piece.  Baste the two together (no need for a back yet) however you prefer - I used safety pins.  Then do some light quilting to stabilize the pieces.  I stitched in the ditch around all of the main blocks and then went around the outside.  Trim excess batting after your quilting is finished.

Next, place the backing fabric on your top, right-sides together.  The backing fabric should be slightly larger than the top.  Then re-baste the entire thing.  I used straight pins for this part because it's only like this for a short time.

Flip your quilt sandwich over and pin around the outside edge.  The double-unicorn pin in the lower left corner of the picture is my "stop point" - a reminder that when I'm stitching around the outside that's where I need to stop to make sure my turning hole isn't too small.

Stitch around the outside of your project, batting side up, using a 3/8" seam allowance.  Remove the pins, trim off the extra backing fabric, clip the corners, and turn the quilt.  Use a crochet hook to make sure all the seams are pushed out completely.

Lay out the project on your ironing board and carefully iron the edges into place.  Make sure they are clean and crisp and the backing doesn't show from the top.  Use wonder clips to hold everything in place after ironing so nothing shifts while you are moving and sewing the piece.

Sew around the edge of your project using a quarter-inch seam allowance.  This will close the opening from turning and keep the edges beautiful!  You also may need to adjust as you go - in the picture above you can see a tiny bit of shifting so the backing fabric is visible on the top.  While I was stitching I tugged at the top gently to make sure it was completely hidden.  I like a double border so I went around a second time between the quarter-inch and the outer edge of my project.  All thread ends are buried just like in free-motion quilting.

Give the project a shake and head back to the ironing board one final time to make sure the front and back are smooth - I find the back sometimes shifts when I am getting the edges perfect.  Pop a couple of pins in to hold everything in place, then quilt as desired.

Merry Christmas and good luck in all your holiday crafting!