Strips from Stripes

Two years ago in July the Magpies flocked in Maine (wherein I was put to work within an hour of my arrival).

My first experience at a pick-your-own farm.

One of the many hot spots we visited that week was the much-talked-of Marden's. This place seems to be a Mecca for those wanting quilt-store-quality fabrics at bargain-basement prices (and you'll find exactly that here!) From what I understand, they buy up outdated or 'out-of-fashion' fabrics from local quilt stores trying to clear their stock to make room for the latest lines.

I've been trying to self-shop for several years, so the thought of wandering the aisles looking at a dizzying array of low-priced/high-quality fabrics didn't really appeal. However, I did want a souvenir of the trip and experience, so I decided I'd look for a striped fabric to use as binding. (I typically cut bias strips for my bindings, and I like the way stripes look on the bias.) That seemed an effective way to actually take an interest in what was on the shelves, yet narrow the visual input.

Yeah, like I was going to get away with one little souvenir...

In addition, some fabric showing wine corks managed to jump in the basket.

When it came time to bind Jesse's quilt, this stash was where I turned first. The top middle fabric seemed to go best with the bright colors of the bowties, as well as the black&white dots in two of the borders.

But I only had a generous 1/2 yard (19") of it. In fact, I had only bought a half yard of all these stripes. Yet according to my go-to chart for binding computations, I needed at least 3/4 yard (I cut the hand-sewn binding strips at 1.75") to bind a 70"x93" quilt:

I started pulling solids that matched the colors in that striped fabric, thinking perhaps I could intersperse them as I sewed the bias strips together. As I was doing that, however, another thought occurred to me: what if I simply bind the corners in the 'manly' solid colors, and bind the rest of the edges in the stripe? Would I then have enough of the stripe to go around?

Only one thing would answer that question: it was time to start cutting. Plugging "326" into the calculator, I cut a strip, measured it, and subtracted that amount. (That's how I keep track of when to stop cutting--when I finally get down to zero.)

And here's how much of my 19" x 41" piece of fabric I had after I fulfilled my bias binding needs:

That's a significant hunk of fabric there--17" on sides A and B of that triangle! Plenty more binding available from this--that chart is on the crazy side of safety, methinks.

After the binding was applied, this was left over from the initial bias strips I had cut and sewn together. The smaller bit is a piece cut out of a section so seams wouldn't be fighting each other.

These will go into my 1-3/4" binding bag and be incorporated into my next scrappy binding. That big honkin' triangle will be kept nearby too. This fabric is too fun as binding to be used in the Scrap User's System!