QUILT AS YOU GO BORDER AND BINDING: Island Home Part 13.

Rewind back to January 2022, and the Island Home Quilt was still in the planning stages. The idea was to design and teach a quilt-as-you-go masterclass with one quilt that is made with six different joining methods. So, drawing on our Mother and Daughter combined skill set, we brought the Island Home quilt to life!

From printing our own original fabric that was designed by Alaura’s partner Alex Birdfox to the technical side of designing a quilt that could actually fit together with so many QAYG methods, with videos and course notes, what a journey!

It was a mammoth task, and there were only supposed to be 12 parts, and here we are at part 13. Oh, and that’s not all; we’ve decided on one more bonus video; read on to see why……

Click on the link below to watch the quilt as you go border and binding video.

Purchase the course notes here: https://www.patternpoole.com/purchase-course-notes

Some fun facts about the quilt:

It was a toss-up between a black or cream background, we decided on cream at the last minute because our last quilt, Twilight Dreaming, was on a black background, so we wanted to do something different.

I wanted the quilt to be made up of squares that were all the same size, but Alaura insisted on an offset design “That’s too hard” I said, and Alaura said, “No it’s not; you can do it Mum!”.

Originally the quilt was going to be all applique, but Alaura liked the idea of a patchwork and applique combination. “That’s going to be too difficult because patchwork blocks can vary in size from person to person,” I said. “It’s going to look great, Mum; you can make it work!”.

So, Alaura pushed me out of my comfort zone, and together we created the Island Home Quilt.

We did it, yay!

I suppose that sometimes we all need a little push out of our comfort zone to surprise ourselves with what we are capable of!

I still have to pinch myself sometimes to think that with modern technology, we can come together from all over the world and quilt together.

It is such a thrill for us to see all the beautiful Island Home quilts that have been made by the course participants; for some, it is their first quilt! If you have made the quilt, please email a photo to studio@patternpoole.com. In the coming weeks, we want to share your beautiful work in a special blog post. We are so proud of you all!

So, here’s the story behind the 7th quilt-as-you-go technique. Some people mentioned that they would like to make their quilt bigger, and with this on my mind, I had a light bulb moment about a 7th technique, a FAUX QAYG mitred border. During the videos, we started saying that the course had 7 techniques; now, we couldn’t actually fit the 7th technique on the quilt, so the idea was to show a sample of the technique while adding a border to our Tabitha the Tiger applique.

This week was to be the final video for the course, where I add a thin border around the Island Home quilt using the Easy QAYG border technique. (The 6th technique) This is a relatively easy technique; you can see how I used it to add multiple borders to our Fi Fi Flamingo applique pattern, it looks great, but the downside is that the top and bottom borders sew across the side borders and sometimes you may prefer the look of a mitred corner.

Watch the video here.

I was all prepared, the border strips were cut for the FAUX mitred corner, with a step-by-step script; here’s a sneak peek of what we were working on.

I’d shown how to make your own template, and I began cutting the corner triangles; I’d cut a total of 8 triangles and feeling quite clever with myself, I began to arrange them to form the mitred corner blocks, just like the sample above. Oh no! I forgot to make them pairs, eight triangles all facing the same way! What? Why? It worked with my sample pieces.

You know that feeling when your mind just goes blank? Well, that was me.

Feeling defeated as I'd used up all my fabric, we took a lunch break to regroup. We’re on a tight schedule to film the videos because Alaura needs 2 to 3 days for the editing; otherwise, she’ll work through the night, and we don’t want that! So the decision was made to finish the quilt and wrap up the video and for me to re-do the borders, and show how to do it in a blog post.

After sleeping on it, I decided that it won’t beat me! There will be one more video in the coming weeks to show the 7th technique! We’re not sure of the date yet, but we’ll let you know.

While we’re on the subject of borders, lets’ look at some quilt-as-you-go borders that I have done in the past.

Café et lait Quilt (PDF pattern available here)

Applique borders and corner blocks joined with the Cover Strip method on the top of the quilt.

Twilight Dreaming. (PDF pattern available here)

Applique borders and foundation pieced corner star blocks joined with the Easy Cover Strip method

on the top of the quilt.

Watch the video series here.

Happiness Quilt (PDF pattern available soon)

Floral borders attached to the quilt with the Easy QAYG Border technique.

Gidget (PDF pattern available soon)

Stitch and flip crazy patchwork borders and corner blocks joined with the Cover Strip method on the top of the quilt.

Peacock’s Garden (PDF pattern available soon)

Applique borders joined onto the quilt with the Easy QAYG Border technique.

Blossom (PDF pattern available soon)

Side borders are bias applique joined onto the quilt with the no sashing method. Hand sewn on the back.

Star Struck (PDF pattern available here)

Wonky star block borders attached to the centre rectangle with the 1 to 3 method.

Shades of Indigo.

As I add this photo, I just realised that this quilt was made 21 years ago! Probably why the picture is not clear; I've updated my camera quite a few times since then!

I’ve never had the time to go back and put this quilt into a pattern.

The borders for this quilt were quilted first, the crisscrossing is ¼” bias. The side borders were joined to the quilt with the 1 to 3 method.

The corner fan blocks were made separately and added to the opposite ends of the top and bottom borders with the no sashing, hand-sewn backing method before being joined to the quilt with the 1 to 3 method.

To finish this blog post I would just like to say from Alaura and I, THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts to all those that join in with our courses, purchase our PDF patterns, watch and subscribe to our YouTube channel, Pattern Poole TV or just simply like and share our Facebook posts to help our business grow. Your support means that we can continue running our mother and daughter digital business.

Love and hugs,

Monica and Alaura