Piping along the Border

Lapel Stick and Quilting

Submitted by: Barb Round

Piping is not something anyone ever taught me to do – it has been trial and error, with several episodes of tearing out because of slippage along the seam line resulting in sloppy piping. I just got my best result ever on a very tiny piping in a quilt border seam, by using Lapel Stick.

I first glued the piping fabric (yellow) to the quilt top (blue pieced), right sides together. Then I glued the piping fabric to itself (photo), securing the string filler as I pressed the glued yellow fabric together. Finally I glued the Border fabric (blue) right side down, on top of the yellow. I sewed the ¼” seam using my zipper foot (1/4” having been determined by the width of the piping fabric). There was no slippage as I sewed through these 4 layers of fabric, pressing the foot up against the filler string; there were no pins to watch for or pull out AND the Lapel Stick did NOT gum up my needle!

The result was a lovely consistent-width piping seam (photo) that made my quilt pop!

Barb Rounds

Campbell River, BC