sewcrafty

I think Amma (I'm supposing here) once the quilting is done, cut back the muslin so it doesn't show, but just enough to be able to catch the material in the seam and then snip the rest of the fleece to give it a fringed look.

Amma, if I'm wrong, I apologize!! :D

wvdek

Before you do anymore cutting, be sure you have everything else quilted, stitched, whatever, so that it does not get back out of shape. Then, I would bring the backing to the front as the binding Use a blanket stitch.

carol45

OK. Now I'm totally confused. I'm fairly new to quilting so I probably don't understand the terminology y'all are using.
I thought I understood what sewcrafty said:
"I thought maybe if you spray basted the fleece to the muslin, maybe you could get the fleece back to where it needed to be before you put the back on and quilted it. I think quilting around the balloons would look real cute, then maybe doing some balloons as quilting on the background fabric would then stabilize it."

I thought this would mean that I cut the muslin to the size of my fleece top, spray it with adhesive, and adhere it to the back of my fleece. My intention was to then attach the fleece back, right sides together, and turn the whole thing right side out—then I would quilt around the balloons, according to sewcrafty—and maybe some other quilting as well.
Then Amma wrote:
"I agree with sewcrafty, if you can get it back in shape first, you may like the looks better in the end. Quilting around the balloons and other objects would help keep the layers together. I would prewash the muslin it hot water first
What if when you sandwich it, you cut the muslin just big enough to fit just outside of where you have your stitching lines. Resew them to catch the edges of the muslin, and trim any excess muslin away. Leave 3-4" of fleece on the front and back around the edges, clip them for fringe or tye them instead of a binding?"

Am I correct in thinking that Amma is suggesting that I not do the pillowcase turning, but instead quilt it with a binding, or make a fringe. This would enable me to trim the muslin after I've quilted around the balloons. Am I understanding it right? Would this really stabilize the fleece? Also, I'm not crazy about the fringe idea—I don't think I'd like the look of it.
Then sewcrafty wrote:
"I think Amma (I'm supposing here) once the quilting is done, cut back the muslin so it doesn't show, but just enough to be able to catch the material in the seam and then snip the rest of the fleece to give it a fringed look."
Which makes me think that Amma just meant to trim the muslin around the whole outer edge, just so that you won't see it. Is that right?
After that wvdek wrote:
"Before you do anymore cutting, be sure you have everything else quilted, stitched, whatever, so that it does not get back out of shape. Then, I would bring the backing to the front as the binding Use a blanket stitch."

I don’t think I’m going to be able to bring the back to the front as binding because I don't believe I have enough of the fleece fabric left to do that—it's not something I've ever done before, but I could try it (I might have enough fleece)—the idea is appealing.
I had the thought that I could simply put the backing on right sides together and do the envelope turning, and see how it hangs—if it didn't look right then, I could turn it back inside out and adhere the muslin to the top and then try quilting it around the balloons. I think now that that's probably a bad idea because it sounds like I need to have the muslin in the seam that surrounds the whole quilt. I really appreciate any comments you have on all of this. Right now I'm pretty confused.
Thanks to all for your ideas so far!

sewcrafty

I wouldn't try to pillowcase bind this. Sorry we've made you confused, it really is not our intention!! :D

I'll go step by step on how I personally would try to rectify this and if it works for you then great!!

1) I would spray my muslin with the basting spray and lay your front piece on top of it. If you spray baste it, you'll be able to move it around and get it flattened out.

2) Then with the top facing down and hopefully wrinkle free, spray the back of the muslin and put on your fleece backing.

3) I would then quilt around the balloons, balloon strings, on the background with little balloons, etc.

4) I see where you have already drew your lines around the top squaring it up. I would cut along the lines and use my x-tra that's cut-off as my binding. From the picture it looks like you have a good 2" that will be cut off and I would use the 4 long sides to do this with. All that you really need is enough to go from the front and wrap around the back (fleece isn't going to ravel) and then sew down.

Then you would have a reg. binding on it.

I hope this makes it a little clearer. If your still confused PM me with your # and I'll call you.

AliKat

While I haven't made any quilt with fleece, I have made vests and such. Using fleece as a binding would be way to bulkiy and it wouldn't look as finished. With the clothing I used lycra as a binding and it was really neatly finished and not bulky as fleece would have been. The lycra also accomodates the stretch of the fleece, unlike regular binding. The lycra also stood up to heavy use of the garments.

Here are my notes to myself on using the lycra as binding:
cut lycra into 2 inch wide lengths for binding of all exposed nonfinished edges. I then serged, but you could sew, it on the finished side/outside of the garment. Then I stitched in ditch after folding lycra to inside using my stitch in the ditch foot on my machine. The last step is to trim the lycra on the inside with appliqué scissors.

carol45

:)

Thanks sewcrafty, that is 100% clear now. One more question (there might be more after that :-): on the binding, how do I do the corners? The usual type of mitered corner would probably be too bulky, wouldn't it? Would I just two opposite sides and then the other two and have them overlap? A blanket stitch was suggested for attaching the binding--I think that would be good.