So, only posting one new project a month was supposed to give us more time to get more complex projects done.  I started this project 3 weeks ago, I swear, but didn’t get finished until 15 minutes before post! (…don’t mind the few threads I still have to tuck in).  So, here we have one false start, two new skills acquired, a last minute trip to the store because I ran out of thread, and in the end potentially a totally unique project – quilted wood*.

The idea for this post was born out of a discussion with Rebecca at Hugs are Fun about making reverse applique with wood.  The concept is interesting – use the laser to cut whatever interesting designs you’d like, and have fabric peek though the negative spaces.  When brainstorming options on how to adhere the fabric to the wood, I thought “Why not quilt it?”  And if I’m quilting it, I might as well go whole hog and bind the edges as well.

Quilt backing and top.

Top makes a perfect fussy cutter!

First step was to design my pattern.  I couldn’t get traditional quilt blocks out of my head do I pulled out the Old Maid’s Puzzle Block – I used it back in Week 64 and still had the vector files.  I thickened the lines and merged them so I wouldn’t end up with a heap of triangles when I was done, and ran a line of holes for stitches at the base of each triangle, and the border edge.  For ease, I just did a simple backstitch, but you could really jazz this up with you wanted to figure out hole placement for fancy stitches.

Quilt layers, and the homemade binding

A quilt is made up of layers and this project is no different – I have a thin (1/16′ bamboo) top layer with the reverse applique design, a fabric layer and then a solid, 1/8″ bamboo back layer.  The stitches hold the layers together.  Aligning the holes that are laser cut is a breeze – the top and the bottom are the same pattern that I removed the cut out triangles from.  The is no real possibility of misalignment.

While the holes are perfectly aligned, the Wonder Clips helped rule out user error 🙂

Have I mentioned I’ve never actually quilted or bound a quilt before?  No?  All I can say is thank goodness for on-line videos. I picked some fabric I had for the middle layer, ran to my local quilt store, Prairie Stitches Quilt Shoppe, to ask for expert advice on binding fabrics (and picked up a package of Wonder Clips!) and picked out complimentary colors from my embroidery floss collection.  Who knew that having a laser cutting blog would build up my sewing stash?!

Front stitching.

Back stitching. There’s not a lot of options to hide messy stitches with the wood, so I had to make it neat!

I used the Wonder Clips to hold the layers together and did the internal stitching in pink first.  I made this relatively small, 6×6, so I wouldn’t have to piece together fabrics to make a continuous binding.  I just purchased 1/8th a yard from a bolt and had a ton to spare.  There multiple types of quilting bindings, and they have confusingly similar names.  I chose to make double fold binding tape for the edging because it was simpler – one stitch through and you are done.  Single fold binding requires two passes of stitches and flexibility to fold over corners, neither of which are an option on the wood.

Pink stitching is in place, and I used the clips to keep the binding from flopping around when stitching it up.

Pretty proud of this neat little corner!

Making double fold binding tape wasn’t as nerve-wracking as I thought it would be – you simply iron your strip of fabric in half, the long way, and then iron each edge to the middle fold.  I used this video by Toni Barsi for tips on how to apply double fold bias tape and how to get it to go around your corners neatly!

Tidy and neatly bound wooden quilt!

Here’s the back the sewing is done, I just have to hide the ends. The ends on the right and top are done, I just rand out of time.

It turned out to be a very cute project, and I learned to create and then used double fold quilt binding.  I can see how the techniques could be refined to make some interesting and artistic quilts!  Now, to find a use for my little oddball quilt…

*I did a quick Google search and didn’t find any other examples of people quilting wood – “Quilted wood” is amazing wood grain, but not a quilt, and “wood quilt” brings up pictured of wooden pieces arranged like a quilt pattern, but not actually sewn.  I’d be interested if anyone has found a quilted, layered wood project like this.