How To Make A Quilt Sleeve For Hanging

With quilt evidence season upon us, I thought I would share my favorite method for making a 4″ broad hanging sleeve. This is the quilt evidence standard, then that a pole can hands slide through the back. I made this sleeve for my Mod Logs quilt which volition exist hanging in the modern quilt category at Road to California afterwards this month.

My Modern Logs backing was scrappy, so I made the hanging sleeve to match!

Materials Needed:

8 1/two″ strip of textile by the width of your quilt
Pins for hemming
Cotton thread to match your fabric
Hand sewing needle
Washable textile glue (optional)

Step ane:

Measure the width of your quilt and cutting a strip of fabric viii 1/2″ wide by 1 inch less than the width. Piece together boosted strips if needed, for quilts wider than 42″. For example, my quilt measures 48″ broad so I will cut scrappy cloth strips, seam them together, and trim the strip to exist 47″ long.

pinned-hem Pin the hem in place – utilise a seam judge if necessary to keep information technology even.

Step two:

Hem both brusque sides by folding them over i/4″ twice. You volition be folding them over to the back side of the strip. Use a seam gauge if necessary to get consistent width folds. Pin to hold the folds and secure with stitching on both ends.

Use matching cotton fiber thread and then your seams volition blend.

Pace iii:

Fold the strip in half along the long side, wrong sides together. Press the fold on the bottom for a nice abrupt crease.

The bottom of this picture is the folded, creased side. The top is the raw edge.

Stride 4:

Open up the strip and bring each half of the strip together in the middle at the crease. Press the top and bottom edges to make a crease on both sides. These will be your guidelines for later.

The original pucker is in the centre; you are adding two more creases.

Step 5:

Open up the strip and align the raw edges wrong sides together. Pin if needed and sew the raw edges along the length with 1/4″ seam. Backstitch at the beginning and end of the strip to secure.

Pin and sew the raw edges together with 1/4″ seam allowance.

Pace 6:

Wiggle the sleeve so that the seam is at present in the centre of the sleeve and press the seam open. You lot volition discover that the sleeve does not lie flat. This is correct – the extra room allows the quilt to hang nicely on the pole. Endeavor to avoid pressing the sleeve apartment (but if y'all do, it'south not the end of the globe and it will still work).

The sleeve will not prevarication flat on both sides – that is correct!

Stride seven (optional):

If desired, gently add glue along the length of the hanging sleeve, on the seam side. Be sure you use a low-cal hand, keeping at to the lowest degree i/eight″ away from the edges so the manus stitching won't become caught upward in the glue. You tin can skip this role and use pins only, if you prefer.

glue-basting Gum-basting the sleeve on Abacus. Keep that glue away from the edges!

Step eight:

Lay out your quilt on a flat surface and gently place your hanging sleeve into position, seam side down, right along the edge of the binding. Center the sleeve so that you have about 1/2″ left on either side of the quilt. The sleeve volition bubble up a bit along the center, giving you lot that extra hanging space.

The sleeve should bubble up, giving you extra wiggle room for the hanging pole.

When yous are happy with the sleeve position, press with a dry iron to secure the glue. Information technology's easiest to press on either long border, 1 at a time, to avert pressing out the bubble. Add a couple of pins around the edges for extra security while sewing.

basted-sleeve I similar to line my sleeve right up next to the binding.

Step 9:

Using several lengths of cotton thread, paw sew the sleeve into place using a whip stitch or a ladder sew. Secure all 4 ends and pop the knot into the batting of the quilt each time you lot end upward a length of thread.

Variation:

You can avoid sewing the top of the sleeve by mitt if you lot add together the sleeve to the quilt subsequently the bounden is sewn to the front of the quilt, just before it is flipped over to the back for finishing. In this instance, marshal the meridian edge of the sleeve with the edge of your quilt. Sew in place by machine, so finish the bottom and sides of the sleeve by manus. The binding will cover virtually 1/4″ of the sleeve but that should still be okay.

A quilt sleeve partially sewn past machine, covered past binding on the top edge.