As an art quilter I am always looking for awesome new ways to display my quilts on the
wall. And of course you can use a sleeve and a piece of wood, which is very traditional.
And I promise to show you how to make that today. But one of my other favorite ways is
to put a tab and a piece of wood or a piece of bamboo or something neat that also kind
of plays within the theme of the quilt. So that’s what today’s tutorial is all about.
Let’s get started.
Ok so let me just make it clear for you what I’m really describing when I talk about
sleeves and tabs for hanging the quilts. So what you see right here is the beginning of
the sleeve that has already been inserted into the binding on the quilt. And I’m going
to show you how to finish hand sewing that here in a second. And then I also have these
tabs right here. Oops, sorry I’ve got lint all over everything as always. It happens
to us quilters right. So I bet you all just looked down at your shirt to see if you had
thread on yourselves as well, didn’t you? Ya it’s ok. Lint roller. Let’s get back
to the video. Now these are what I call the tabs and as you saw a moment ago they hang
and show above the project. But right now we have them pinned down as if we were putting
them in place. So let’s back up a deep breath and talk about how we’re going to construct
the sleeve or the tabs.
So let’s start with the sleeve. That’s the one most of us know and use often. And
what we’re going to want is we’re going to want to use the length of our quilt as
our measuring device. And I’m not going to really use my selvedges so let’s go ahead
and get my rotary cutter, ok? And the first thing I need is my good ruler. So we’re
going to cut one end off to begin with. And this is a 5 ½ inch strip that is on the table
by the length of the fabric. And you’re going to need it to be at least as long to
start with as the quilt. So my quilt was only about 25 inches so obviously this is long
enough. If the quilt is over 45 you’re going to have to join a few pieces that will be
5 ½ inches wide, ok? So the first cut was made that way. Now I’m going to simply take
and measure this. And I’m kind of eyeballing it. I’m going to want it just slightly shorter
as you see in the example than the binding itself or the quilt itself. So I pinch it
here. Move this out of the way so I don’t cut it. And I’m going to do a straight cut
and prepare to fold the edges under. We don’t want a raw edge on the end of our sleeves
because we don’t want the, whatever rod we put through there pushing and causing that
to look untidy. So the first thing we’re going to do, follow me over to the sewing
machine here. Is we’re going to set this thing up to turn the tube and do the raw edge.
First is the finishing of the raw edge. So I’m just going to fold this over slightly
once and a second time. And just kind of finger hold it. And of course you would want to use
a nice matching thread. I’m using black on this blue and white polka dot so you can
see if you’re working on the right sides or the wrong sides. And you can see the stitching
we’re doing. So we’re going to sew that on this side. We’ll do the exact same to
the other side. So we’re just going to go ahead and fold it over. Oops, let me do it
this way. Fold it over, fold it over. And now you know what I usually do it right at
the machine because it’s so much easier to start sewing right there. So we’ve got
that little pinch there. What I’m trying to really do is subtract about an inch from
either side, maybe half of an inch from either side, to make it just fit in. Because we will
be sewing this into the corner or into the binding itself. So we don’t want it all
the way to the corners. Ok so I’m going to finish that edge out.
Now we are going to make a tube that we are going to have to turn right sides back out.
So the easiest way to do that is to take a piece of cord, twine, whatever you have and
a big fat strong safety pin. And pin it going up. Get a couple of bites of your fabric in
there. And it’s on the inside because we are going to now sew this tube right sides
together. That’s why I used this print so you could see which are our right sides together
even though I’m using the solid black in my real quilts. I usually use the sleeve or
the tabs matches the color of the binding and/or outer border. And I’m going to backstitch
this because I really want it secure from this point. This will be the finished product.
Oop and let’s just stop for a second. I just had a thread caught. Hopefully that makes
it so you can see a little better. Ok so we’re going to stitch to the end of this. Do not
stitch over your cord because we’re going to use that to pull our tube right sides out.
I’m going to do it quick in this video so I can show you some other things. I have a
fun quick tip that shows you tube turning we call it. And it will give you a detailed
explanation of what I’m doing with this string right here or this cording right here
inside. All of the wonderful quilts we’ve created here at Man Sewing and sometimes it’s
those simple tips that go the longest ways because they save us so much time and effort
down the road. Ok and backstitching at the end.
So I’m going to cut that out. And then what I do is I take this. And at first I start
by kind of turning my safety pin inward and like that. And then I come down here and I
start to scrunch up. And you just don’t want to tug too hard at the beginning because
if you tug too hard at the beginning you might pull the safety pin off. But viola, your tube
is now turned right sides out and it is finished and ready to be inserted, now known as a sleeve
in your quilt. One of the things I do as a trick is I use for pressing is I set the seam
and then I hide the seam on the back of the project. So let’s finish getting this dialed
in.Ok and to set the seam what I usually do is I kind of drop the iron, see how it’s
kind of falling on one side of the seam. I want to hide the seam on the back. I do not
want to try to hide the seam in the seam allowance that catches where the binding comes on. It’s
just too much going on up there. Now I’m doing this to kind of flatten it out nice,
ok?
And then I take my sleeve onto my quilt on the back side of the project at the top because
you want your quilt to hang from the top, right? And then, you see where my seam is
here, this normally gets flipped down this way. Then it is actually pinned in place so
that it is caught in the top as this binding comes on itself right there. So that’s what
holds it on at the top by machine. Then to finish all we have to do is we load up our
hand needle. And one of the things I like to do before I hand sew it on is I adjust
the sleeve up just a little bit so there’s a little bit of extra gap in here. When I
put in my rod in the sleeve to hang the quilt I don’t want that to show with the quilt.
I want all of the extra weight to be on the back. So I’m constantly creating a little
bit of a channel inside of my sleeve to catch the weight. And then all I’m doing is a
real basic whip stitch. And what I like to do is I use my thumb to create that tunnel
or that, that little pucker in there so I have a place for the rod. And then I’m just
going to whip stitch by coming through the quilt and out the sleeve. And it looks like
I’ve got a little teeny knot there but I’m not going to spend too much time on that because
it will drive me crazy and you crazy as well. So we’re just going to keep, like I said,
through the quilt, out the sleeve. And you just finish all the way to the end. Make sure,
nice and secure. It doesn’t have to be really tight stitches but you may want to hide them
in case you’re being judged in quilting. I don’t enter quilts to be judged so I can
be a little bit of a slob. You can be as tidy as you like. But that will mount it so you
can take something kind of small and narrow like this, a regular rod, or dowel from the
hardware store. And then I like to slide it inside of the sleeve so that if anything ever
came off the wood like a bit of sap or something like that, it wouldn’t actually get on the
quilt. The sleeve is easier to replace than the whole quilt. And then that would mount
and hang like this. And of course you can trim your rod down to whatever size you want
to mount your quilt. And a couple of little tack nails will hold it on your wall very
nicely. Ok?
Now most of the quilts I started doing early on were actually tropical seascapes and so
I wanted that idea but I wanted to use bamboo. I had a friend that grew bamboo in her yard.
And so what I did was I showed at the beginning of the video was I made these tabs and I would
put bamboo in there. But we’re using the Eagle over Alaska quilt which we have a fun
tutorial for you as well. And so because it’s over Alaska we wanted to use some real cool
lumber. So we’ve got this big piece of pine here that we’re going to put in there. I
don’t even know if this is pine. That’s awful. I think it’s oak isn’t it because
it’s got all that bark on there. Ok tree friends, that’s what you’ve got to do,
teach me trees out there in the comments below. Let me know what kind of stick I’m holding.
And we’re getting back to the tutorial now. So at any rate I want to be able to show this
off as you saw so we want the tabs to fold up like this when we’re done inserting them.
So let’s back up yet another deep breath and talk about how to make the tabs first,
ok?
We’re going to start with our standard tube. This was also 5 ½ inches wide by the length
of the fabric. You definitely want the length of the fabric because of how we’re going
to cut these down. Now we did not have to finish the raw edge because it’s going to
get sliced off. I simply folded this right sides together with my quarter inch seam allowance
so that was the first steps. Next steps are to create the tabs themselves. And I’m going
to want to have those be eight inches at least because of the thickness of that I can put
a larger piece of lumber in the, the tabs than I can the sleeves easily. I’m just
going to slice off of here. And then, like I said, I usually have an eight inch chunk.
To finish this trick I’m just going to flip this over. Get myself organized. So I’m
coming down here. And I can see my eight inches here. And I’m just going to trim. And I
go all the way down the tab. And you’re going to get five of these tabs out of a piece
of 45 inch goods at least. And do take the time to make sure you’re making nice cuts
because after we cut all of these we’re going to press them like we did with the tube.
So first of all, I’m sorry, we’re not going to press them yet. We’re going to
turn them right sides out. And this is why I didn’t do it with the cord in there. I
just find it’s just as easy to do this. You could have certainly turned the tube and
then cut it all. But this I find gives me the cleanest cutting because I hadn’t been
manipulating it a bunch yet, is what I’m trying to say, ok? So there’s my single
tab. Do the same pressing trick. So I’m kind of holding it up. I’m catching that
seam, then I’m pushing it over like that. And for the tab, we’re going to hide the
seam completely from the eye. So what I’m doing now is there is our seam. It gets folded
like this. So all of those raw edges then would be insert up here into the binding itself.
So again this binding has captured all of the raw edges.
So the first thing I do is I measure the center of the quilt itself. And it’s very difficult
math. All you do, fold it in half and the middle of that and the middle of this line
right up and we drop one of those tabs right there. And as you can see I slide a pin down
but I make sure I’ve got at least a half of a finger’s distance is already stitching
up here twice. And I don’t want to catch those with the sewing machine at all, ok?
So we’re going to set one here. Then I come to the corners and I put an inch over from
the corner so that I can miter my corners for the binding and not worry about that there.
An inch over from the other corner. So I’ve got my middle. I’ve got my edge. And then
I just simply split the difference visually. And if I can’t quite tell I’ll measure
the difference. But a lot of times you can just do it by eye. I like to have an odd number
when I’m dealing with my tabs so I always have one dead center. My tabs are the same
color as my binding and/or as my exterior border as well. So I pinned them down and
I stitched them the first time as I go through while I’m putting the binding on the back
of the quilt. I have an awesome binding tutorial that shows you how I do binding by machine,
both for the back and then I roll it to the front to topstitch it down. When I topstitch
it down I’m also catching the tabs one more time for security. But that’s why I leave
the pin in there because once I’m sewing it I don’t want any of these shift because
all of them are the same length which makes it so that your quilt hangs at a nice level
position. Once the binding has been stitched to the back and the front of the project then
we can pull out our pins and hang our tabs up. I don’t bother taking the time to press
them. It’s not necessary at this point. From here we can just go ahead and find our
perfect piece of lumber from the yard. I’ll be looking forward those comments again by
the way. And then we’re just going to slide it in here like this. And you can hang it.
And what I like to do, and maybe I’ll pull this out and show you real quick. What I like
to do is use a little bit larger nail and kind of hide them right underneath on the
wall. ButI hide them right between where the tabs something so that the mounting hardware
for your stick is almost invisible. With the bamboo, a really cool trick if you want to
try that, is you drill a hole in the back of the bamboo. And you put little screws on
the wall and you can actually hang that bamboo right on the screws and you can’t see a
thing other than your beautiful rod, your awesome tabs, or your awesome sleeves that
you’ve put on your custom wall quilt, that you learned how to make right here at Man
Sewing.