A Little Finish

My little Dove in the Window Miniature is finally finished. Totally. Done. Yay! First of all it needs a name - any suggestions? Dove in the Window is the name of the block, but surely between you and I we can come up with a better name...? All suggestions welcomed. The finished quilt is 12.25" square and each individual "dove" is 1.5" square.
Life here has been busy this summer so this got set aside for a while (too long!) I was determined to try a new method/technique and it stalled me for a bit. A while back I ordered Susan Cleveland's "Piping Hot Binding" kit to add a narrow corded piping to the quilt. Susan has developed a very useful tool for making the tiny corded piping and I just had to give it a try. It comes in a kit with an excellent instruction booklet and about 5 yds. of narrow cording.

As Susan says, it takes a bit of trial and error to find the perfect foot and needle position to make the narrow piping successfully. I tried my zipper foot - no go. I could not get the stitching close enough to the cording to suit me (the cording is about 1/16" so we're talkin' pretty small here, folks!) Actual cording or piping feet are designed for larger cording, more suited to upholstery or making pillows. I tried the one pintuck foot I have, a seven groove, but the grooves were too small. I tried different needle positions too... still not satisfied. I finally borrowed both a three groove and a five groove pintuck foot from my friend Carole (it's great to have good friends who are also Bernina owners!) and the three groove was just right!
Susan has several little tricks which make the process easier- I won't give away all her secrets here, that wouldn't be fair (but you can watch her YouTube videos here and here.) But I have to tell you - the tool is so cool! It allows you to trim the piping seam allowance once it is made to the perfect consistent width and the tool has two grooves -  two sizes for very small and for larger pipings. (The cording lies in the groove.) Anyway, I persisted and finally got the piping made and applied. It is not 100% perfect, but for my first effort I am quite pleased with it. I will definitely practice a bit more and use this again. I love the look! What do you think?
So there you have it. I have at least four more Miniatures I want to finish before my class at the
Nova Scotia Fibre Arts Festival on October 18th, so stay tuned...

Piece!
Linda

"Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in." ~ Bill Bradley