Being a creative person, I find sewing on sleeves to be time consuming and quite boring. So, I started to think of how I could either make this process more fun or faster. My fun idea is still in the developmental stages, but here is my time saving idea.

Make the sleeve into a long tube as you normally do. Pin or baste the sleeve to the back of quilt along the top edge. Then from the front of your quilt machine stitch in the ditch (where the binding is already attached) with invisible thread. The top half of the sleeve is now securely sewn to the quilt and even if you are not perfect stitching in the ditch, this is nearly impossible to see. For best results, sew the bottom portion of the sleeve on by hand.

©2003 Valerie Bonhivert
www.quiltersstitchtogether.com