How to Hang a Quilt Tutorial

Hi, I’m Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. Today I want to teach you how to put a sleeve on the back of your quilt. A lot of people like to use a sleeve like this for hanging their quilts. The way it works is, it is sewn into the binding on one side and tacked down on the other side. This enables you to stick a rod right in here and hang the quilt from the back without putting any stress on your quilt or having to hang it some other way, which, you know, I have a, I have some ways of hanging quilts that aren’t so good, haha. So, anyway, this... I’m going to show you how to do a sleeve. So, what you’re going to do first is, you’re going to get your quilt all quilted and trimmed so it’s ready to put the binding on. Once you get your quilt back and it’s ready to put the binding on, you’re going to... and I’m just going to use this quilt as an example, right here, and this edge, right here. So you’re going to cut your sleeve and your sleeve is going to be the length of your quilt minus two inches on either side and then it’s going to be eight inches wide. So, let me cut that little piece, right here. I wasn’t quite ready for that big quilt. Alright, so, right now I’m lining up this piece of fabric and I’m going to cut it eight inches wide. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, just like this. And it will be just a little shy of the length of my quilt. Now, this one is obviously not going to stretch the length of this big quilt, but it will be there to show you. So, the first thing you’re going to do once you get your eight inch piece that is the width of your quilt, you’re going to finish your ends and I just like to give them a little press, like this, and sew those down on the sewing machine. You don’t have to do, you don’t have to do a double edge or anything like that. You can surge it, you can do whatever you want. Basically, we’re just looking for a finished edge on the back of your quilt. And then I just generally come over here and just sew a little, little quick seam down the edge of it. So, let me do that. And these are folded rather large because I’m hiding the selvedge, but yours, yours can be just a quarter of an inch or whatever you’d like. I’m going to do this one, as well. Alright, now the next thing we’re going to do is iron this right in half, lengthwise. So we’re going to pull this over here and we’re going to fold it, just like this, lengthwise, and we’re going to make sure that our edges match up just exactly. We want them to be really, really, really close together,so that... ‘cause we’re going to tuck them. We’re going to sew them down when we sew our binding down and that will enable them to stay right together. So, this ironing is really important. Ok, so then the other thing you have to make sure is that you have your binding and your binding strip is ready. Our binding strips are two and a half and they’re ironed in half as well. So now we’re ready to add the sleeve onto our quilt. So we bring our quilt that’s already been quilted and trimmed and we’re going to put our sleeve on the back, like this. So we’re just going to move it in about an inch on the side, like that, and we’re going to line it up right with that raw edge. Just exactly with that raw edge. We’re also going to line up our binding, but we’re going to our binding on the other side and, of course, your binding, you know, you’ll start around the other corner, but for the showing, this we’re just going to show it where it’s right on here because you will bind your quilt just normally all the way around but, this top part of your quilt, you’re going to make sure that you have your sleeve sitting, right up there. So, the sleeve sits up there and the binding sits up there and we’re just going to go ahead and sew this down. You’ll want to probably put some pins in there to hold it together, just like that. Make sure they all line up and put a pin in there. Alrighty, so I’m going to head to the sewing machine and sew that down. And, again, it’s just a normal quarter of an inch. There we go. And you’ll want to stop and check and make sure that you’re still lined up. You, you do not want to lose your little binding strip or your, or your sleeve as you come across the top. Alright. Now we’re just going to pretend that I sewed this all the way across the top and it fit across the whole top of our quilt because that’s what you’ll want to do; that’s what will help it to hang. So now what we have is this piece, right here, like this, across the top of our quilt. This sleeve. Now what will happen is, we’ll bring our binding around the front and bring it over, just like that, so that it completely covers up the edge of that sleeve so that you’re able to sew that on by the sewing machine and that sleeve is not going to go anywhere. So, I’m just going to show you quickly how I do that binding stitch and I have a thread that I would never use, haha, on this color, but you’ll be able to see it real good. So what I do with this when I do my thread... First of all, let me show you a knot because I did get a question recently. Somebody asked me about a knot. How to make a knot. And when I do mine I, I cross it on my finger, like this, and then I just roll it so that it rolls in itself and pull it down and it makes this little knot down here. So, there’s all kinds of ways to make knots-- that’s how I do it. Than what I do is, I come in through my binding, like this, so that my knot will be hidden on the back, and I come out the fold. So, I’m out the fold, now I’m going to, I’m just going to lay all these threads over, like this, and I’m going to fold this down, right here. Then what I’m going to do is, I’m going to stitch, come right where that thread comes out, right where that blue thread comes out, I’m going to put my needle in and I’m going to go about a quarter of an inch, between an eighth and a quarter, and come right out the fold. That’s a hidden binding stitch. So, right where that thread comes out, I’m going back in and I’m sliding over and coming out about a quarter of an inch, just like that, and that will hold that, that binding right down on there. Now, this is the exact same stitch you’re going to use on the bottom, so let me put a little knot in here. And I do my little knots by doing a little bit of a loop, like that. I come through it twice and I pull it and then I take my thread so it goes right out the top, like this, so that there’s no stress on that knot when you’re, when you’re pulling it and then you just cut that thread. So now we have to attach the bottom of the sleeve and the bottom of the sleeve is done exactly the same way and we’re just going to come through the fold and, right here, on this edge, there’s going to be a lot of strain on this edge, right here because that’s where the, your pole’s going to go in and out of. I’ll take a couple of stitches just right in the same spot and, remember, you’ll be using thread that matches, so it won’t show. So then what we’re going to do is the same thing we did on the top. We’re going to go through here and we’re going to come out right in the fold about a quarter of an inch away. Now you, you want to make sure that your thread is not coming through to the front. You do not want to see that thread on the front. So you’re going into the backing and into the batting, but not out the front. And I keep my finger back here to feel if that needle comes through. Then, I just pull it back and start my stitch again. And so, we’re just going to go ahead and keep stitching, like this. Right out the fold, quarter of an inch in, and we’re going to go across and stitch this whole thing down. Then, this whole side of the quilt is going to be ready to hang using a hanging sleeve. So, let’s take a look at this hanging sleeve one more time and, here it is. And, you can see, we’ve stitched down on this bottom, right here, and we’ve folded, sewn our binding on and folded it around and stitched it down, as well, and it just makes the perfect little sleeve to hang it... your quilt will hang very straight and you won’t have to have any clips or anything like that. Now, if you’re doing an antique quilt and it’s, and it’s a quilt that’s already been bound, what you can do if you can make a sleeve... I didn’t realize this fell down. You can make a sleeve just the same way you made your other sleeve. So, you’re going to sew it down, like this, but this one because both sides are going to show. So, here, see, here is you’re little... you have finished your ends and you’ve sewn your, your sleeve, and on this one we just tucked it up under the binding, but if the binding is already on there, then you’re just going to turn this right side out, like this, so that there is no, you know, no raw edges, because now every... this whole sleeve is going to be on the outside. There we go. And then I ironed it so this seam is in the middle. So now this seam is in the middle on the back and, when you attach this to, to the top of your quilt, you’re going to lay it up here, just right by the binding, but you’re just going to use that same binding stitch and sew the top and the bottom of it. And that’s how you do a quilt that is either already bound or an antique quilt. Now, I did actually spend some time at the museum in Virginia and talked to them about these hanging sleeves because that is the best way to hang your antique quilts is to put a hanging sleeve on them, and they even recommend putting one if it’s not directional. You can get a hanging sleeve on the top and on the bottom and you can rotate that so that all the wear doesn’t happen on one side of the quilt. So, that’s how you attach a hanging sleeve to your quilts whether they’re new or old. And we hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.