Tutorials

tutorial:: binding your quilt

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i don’t know about you but i can not follow directions without someone “showing” me. either in person or in pictures…so i hope this helps if you need it! (and yes that’s my katie quilt.)
measure your quilt and determine how many strips you’ll need to cut for the whole quilt (i usually hate to measure and most of my quilts are throw size so i just figure 2 strips per side and always end up with about the right amount if not extra, but if you’re anal go ahead and measure!)
cut your binding fabric to 2 1/2 inches (you could do it on the bias but i hate cuting on the bias, so i don’t do it unless it’s gigham or stripes)

using a 1/4 inch seam allowance, sew all your strips together end to end.
then you’ll press with an iron down the middle of your looooong strip of binding.
now lets get it on the quilt (i’m lazy so i don’t pin, if you want go ahead and pin!) make sure your raw edges are faceing the same direction as your quilt’s edge (out). start in the middle of your quilt’s edge and make sure you have a tail that’s about 3 inches long. (this will be your connector in the end)
sew all the way down your quilt till you get around a 1/4 inch from the corner of your quilt and backstitch. take if off the sewing machine…
next pull your strip up to a 45 degree angle (this is your corner, so you want to make sure it’s 90 degrees) see how my binding looks like it just continues into a straight line from the quilt? that’s super important!

now holding tightly to that 45 degree angle, pull down the binding strip and line it up to your quilt’s edge so you will be able to continue sewing down the next side. (make sure you don’t loose your 90 degree angle under there!)
go and sew down the next length of your quilt and repeat for each corner the 45 degree angle, the continuous line of the quilt and the binding and then the fold over.
now here’s the hardest part in my opinion…closing your binding. make sure you leave around 3 inches of work space in between the beginning and the end tails.
pin together ends to equal the length of remaining quilt. and sew together the two tails.

now before you cut it down make sure it lies flat on your quilt, if it does then cut and proceed to finish sewing onto your quilt.


next we’re going to use a blind stitch link here for a visual when blind stitching make sure you go as close to your edge of your binding as posible, this way the thread will be “invisible” and make sure you go directly beneath your stitch on your quilt so that the stitch stays “invisible”… oh go look at the you tube video i linked it’s easier to actually “see” it
when you get to your corner you will fold over (hopefully very easily because you were so careful with your 45 degree angles!)this will make a nice corner on your back.
and i like to make sure i do one stitch right at the edge of my corner so it gives you a clean corner look. oh yeah and make sure your cat enjoys sitting on your quilt as you are hand binding the thing, it makes it super easy to move your quilt around…hardy har har. voila! you have your quilt all done!

ps i’m not sure why my spell check isn’t working so i’m sorry for the horrible spelling if there are any that i missed!
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