Hello all, Mary Ellen here.

Sometimes I drive myself crazy with my perfectionist tendencies. Not every quilt I make needs to be perfect. The baby quilts that will get burped on and dragged around, the kids quilts that will be used as tents and forts, the graduates’ quilts that will be on the lawn behind the dorm–no need to perseverate over points cut off, or stitches that didn’t stay in the ditch. I like Beth Ferrier’s  phrase (that’s the name I couldn’t think of at the guild meeting last week) that she is a “recovering perfectionist”. I describe myself that way too. I have let go of many of my tendencies to keep fixing things until they are just right, but I do like knowing how to make things perfect when the occasion merits it. I love a perfect binding for example. On a quilt that is going to be a special keepsake I will fuss, and gasp! I’ll even hand stitch the back. Ricky Tims has a great technique for having the only seams in your binding be those that are holding the miters at the four corners. I first saw this demoed by Ricky when he and Alex Anderson were here in Buffalo a few years ago. I bought his DVD called Grand Finale in which he shows many of his techniques for a perfect finish to your quilt. Was well worth the investment and I refer back to it now and again.

Today in the e-mail from The Quilt Show Ricky again demoes for Alex how to make this perfect finish. It will cost you some yardage since you will be cutting your binding strips on the lengthwise grain, and you may want to invest in the tool he uses.  This does show why he often wins those big purse prizes if he puts this much care into all the aspects of his quilts. Click here to watch the video clip: Ricky’s video

Also another shout out of congratulations goes to our guild member Marija Vujcic. My latest issue of Quiltmaker magazine has arrived and Marija has another quilt design published. Perhaps before long Marija will be a big name too! And we knew her when!