BMP

Thanks for teh information..

Scissor Queen

That's the easiest way to do it since you only have to hand stitch one side. I make mine just a little shorter than that though. I like to leave a good inch on each side so you don't see the brackets for the rod.

Flying_V_Goddess

That's my other problem. My hand sewing is awful.

My borders will probably be as wide as the sleeve. And I was just going to do straight stitching for the quilting on the borders. So that got me thinking. I could do most of the quilting on the border. Prepare to make the sleeve. Do everything up to making that second fold to make that poof for the rod. Lay the sleeve open and stitch along that extra fold. Then line up the edges of the sleeve and do the binding. I think if I plan it right when I stitch along that fold it will secure the sleeve to the back and create a line of the straight stitch quilting in the front and nobody can tell.

Tell me if I'm not making sense or my idea is crazy.

AliKat

Just visited with a quilting buddy and she showed me how she made her sleeves and hung her quilts. She uses a piece of flat wood lath to go thru the sleeve and then puts metal mirror hangers to hold the lath. She makes the sleeve to fit the lath piece. You cannot see any hardware when she has her quilts up. Looks nice.

A link for making the quilt sleeve is:
wwwbluemoonriver.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-make-quilt-sleeve.html

ali

Scissor Queen

LOL!! I was just thinking when I put the sleeves on the last two wall hangings that if I pinned it on open when I quilt around the last border I wouldn't have to sew it down by hand. Go for it! Just make sure you pin the rest of it out of the way.

Flying_V_Goddess

Cool! I'm not the only one who thought of this! I'm not a crazy quilter! lol

I'm gonna go for it! Like I said, my hand sewing is terrible which is why I have a machine to do this. Most of the time I end up making a complete mess out of it and the stitching is noticeable and just horrible looking. On the rare occasion I sew something that isn't noticeable the stitching isn't very secure and falls apart. And its like a month before Christmas. Most likely (considering my history with making things with little time to do it) it will probably be two days before Christmas when I get to the step of putting on the sleeve and I sure can't perfect my hand sewing in two days.