Today is the very first day since school started three weeks ago that I get to spend the entire day at home. No urgent errands to run, no doctor or dentist appointments, no city soccer obligations. No one needing me. It feels fabulous!!

I am finally going to tackle some of the projects that have been lying around incomplete for at least two months. It should be a glorious day! I'm thinking it might be a good idea not to answer the phone.

I am actually sharing a tutorial today. I know, it's been ages. I enjoy making tutorials, but they really are a ton of work. Hopefully this one makes sense, because I forgot to take pictures of a couple of the steps. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

I am going to show you how to tie a quilt without the annoying strings of yarn on the outside. My mom taught me this method when I was a teenager, and I have tied all my quilts this way since then. And I've tied a lot of quilts. I had a grandma that loved piecing quilts, so every year for Christmas, she gave us a new quilt top. I still have a box full that I need to tie. This is one of the quilt tops she pieced. Some of the fabrics are a little crazy, but I love the pattern. She was an amazing seamstress!!

Yarn Inside Quilting Tutorial

OK, here we go. First off, you will need a really long needle. Mine are doll needles and they are about 5" long. You can usually find them at fabric or craft stores.

1-Attach your fabric and batting to the quilt stand like you normally would. But instead of poking your needle from top to bottom, you are going to come in from the side. I come in right between the top layer and the batting. MAKE SURE YOUR PIECE OF YARN IS LONG ENOUGH TO REACH FROM ONE SIDE OF THE QUILT TO THE OTHER, WITH AN EXTRA 18" OR SO!!
2-Now you push the needle up through the fabric in the place you want your stitch to be. This makes hole #1.
3-Now pull the yarn through, making sure to leave a tail at the side.
It should look like this when you are done:
4-Now make your stitch by poking the needle back down about 1/4" away from where you came up. This makes hole #2. Pull the yarn all the way through to the bottom.
5-Now bring the needle back up in hole #1.
6-Pull the yarn all the way up. Insert your needle sideways into hole #2. Do not poke it through to the back!! You want to slip it just underneath the top layer of fabric, and come up where you want your next stitch.
7-Pull the yarn through and repeat the process. Up through hole #1, down through hole #2:
8-Back up through hole #1, then sideways over to the next stitch.
Repeat until you reach the edge of the quilt. Then clip the end of the yarn so it meets the edge of the fabric.

Keep working row by row till you have finished your quilt. One thing that is different with this method is that you can only work from both ends. You can work right to left or left to right, but you cannot work up and down. Each piece of yarn must come in from the side, so you can't sew the side shut or it doesn't work. Make sense?

When you are all finished, just bind your quilt like you normally do, just stitching over the ends of the yarn to enclose them. This is a close up of what your quilt will look like.
All the yarn is on the inside. No loose pieces of yarn that can come untied. Hooray!!

I'd like to give a big welcome to my newest sponsor, Robyn Crumby. She's a brilliant photographer, and she makes the most amazing home decor plaques for her Etsy store. My sponsors allow me to do tutorials like this for free, so make sure you say hi when you visit them.