Sleeve Tutorial

To keep load speed quick with all the images you need for a tutorial, I sized the images smaller for a quick load speed. You can click on the pictures to see a larger image of them. Happy hanging sleeve making!

W henever I do a hanging sleeve on a quilt or mention it on a list, I get all sorts of requests for how I do the sleeve .. So, I figure I can post it here for everyone and take a stab at doing my first tutorial ..

First, you really need to start thinking about attaching your sleeve before you quilt your borders, as the sleeve gets sewn on when you do your last / top border.

Sew 3 sides of your borders down. Then take your ruler and draw a line from the edges of the side borders as pictured above. This is your border / sewing line. (Line darkened for clarity) While you’re there measure the distance between these 2 edges and the distance from your line to the top of your quilt.

Quick formula for figuring sleeve size – take your border width and add 2″ to that measurement, then measure from the line to the top of your quilt and add 3″ to that total. So for this sleeve, my distance between border edges was 24″, and my height was 1.5″. So I needed to cut my sleeve 24+2 = 26″ and 1.5 + 3 = 4.5″.

Now turn under 1/2″ at one end and press; turn under another 1/2″ on same side, press, then stitch as shown. Repeat for the other side.

Place the sleeve right side down on your quilt back. Place sleeve 1/2″ above drawn line and pin in place. Keeping track of your sleeve, flip your quilt over and ditch stitch your border, removing pins as you go. Try to keep these pins outward facing on the side you are stitching.

Keeping an eye on where your sleeve is (or you could pin it too), finish your border quilting if needed. Fold as shown with the raw edge over the top of your quilt.

Smooth out and pin into place and then sew your binding on. After your binding is down, trim the excess, but what your edge 🙂 Now what I do is take a small dowel and insert it into the sleeve prior to pinning / sewing it down. That way I know how much ‘pouf’ i will need to use a dowel – otherwise you are going to have to use a paint stick or piece of lattice to hang your quilt from.

Use nails, hangers, mollies, anchors (fixtures) .. your poison of choice for hanging your quilt from .. The small quilts in my house get thumb tacks (donkey pin style).

Other things to consider .. if you have a larger / heavier quilt, you might want to have more fixture support – in that case, make 2 or 3 narrower sleeves the same as above and use an extra ‘nail’ in spaces between sleeves to provide more support along the ‘bar’ or dowel.

I hope this helps you all 🙂