January's Quilt Lesson

Binding with Mitred Corners

For doubled, continuous binding, with mitered corners:

Cut cross grain, selvage to selvage, bias is not necessary unless you are binding curves.

I cut 2 and 1/4 inch strips for about a 3/8 inch binding and 2 inches for a 1/4 inch binding. Piece the strips into one long strip. Seams on the diagonal reduce bulk and make a nicer binding. Cut the ends of each strip on a 45 degree angle, put right sides together, offsetting so you have the pointy tips of the seam allowances sticking out. Sew with a 1/4 inch seam, press the seams open and cut off the dog ears.

Fold the strips in half, wrong sides together, and press the fold.

Made sure the starting edge of the binding is cut on a 45 degree angle. Place the binding on the front side of your quilt, raw edges even, in the middle of one of the sides. Do not start sewing the binding at a corner.

Start sewing about 4 or 5 inches away from the beginning edge. I use the edge of my regular presser foot, Pfaff 1476, as the seam allowance guide. This makes a binding of about 3/8 inch, which I like better on a full size quilt than a 1/4 inch binding. . Otherwise, make the seam allowance 1.4 inch or whatever you have decided the width of the binding should be.

Sew until you are a seam allowance width from the corner (if the binding seam allowance on the edge of the quilt is 1/4 inch, stop sewing 1/4 inch away from the corner.) Take the quilt out from under the needle and turn it as if ready to sew down the next side. Take the loose binding strip and fold it straight up, away from you, off the top of the quilt. You will notice that a 45 degree fold appears from the point where you sewed the last stitch. Now, fold the binding strip back down over itself, straight down, toward you and line up that fold with the top edge of the quilt and the raw edge of the binding with the raw edge of the quilt. Start sewing again from the top edge down to the next corner and repeat.

Stop sewing 4 or 5 inches from the beginning of the binding. This means from the actual edge of the binding, not from where you started sewing the binding on. You need to have both the beginning and the ending of the binding loose for about 4 to 5 inches so you can manipulate the fabric easily to sew the ends together.) Stop and take the quilt out of the machine.

To finish the ends of the binding nicely

This method came from Sally Collins' book, Small Scale Quiltmaking. It's a great book for techniques, even if you aren't doing miniatures. Go buy it; she's a nice lady and this binding technique is worth the price of the book, IMHO.

Now, we will be dealing with the beginning and the ending ends of the binding. If you have miles too much binding, cut off the excess, leaving enough to overlap the beginning by about 4 inches ( or just slightly less than the distance to where you started sewing the beginning of the binding.

Unfold the beginning end of the binding flat. Lay the end of the binding inside the opened up binding with the fold lines matched up. Fold the beginning over the ending, so the end of the binding is encased in the beginning. With a pencil or other marker, put a dot on the ending binding (which is inside the beginning) right at the point where the pointy tip of the beginning is and also where the wide angle of the beginning is. Take the end out of the beginning of the binding now and open the ending out flat. With a ruler, draw a line on the fabric to connect the two marks you just made. You will notice this is a 45 dgree line, relative to the edge of the binding. Now move your rule out toward the cut edge 1/2 inch and draw another line. Cut the binding on this second line.

Match the binding ends, right sides together, offsetting 1/4 inch, like you did when you were piecing the strips originally. Make sure you haven't twisted the binding or anything like that. Sew the two ends together with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Press this seam open and trim the dog ears.

Now, you should be able to re-fold the binding and lay it nicely on the quilt and finish sewing the binding on.

When you fold the binding over the edge of the quilt to the back, the corners will miter automatically. On the back, fold a miter in the binding, in opposite directions than the front, to distribute bulk. Hand sew the binding down on the back..

Other tips:

If you have a serger, use it to serge the edges of the quilt before you bind it. This keeps the edges nice and flat and fills out the binding nicely. If you don't have a serger, you can zig zag the edge and then trim it neatly along the outside edge of the zig zag.

If you are making something that isn't going to be sent to the Fair and you don't want to hand sew the binding on the back, apply the binding as directed, but put it on the back side of the quilt first and fold it over to the front. It is easier to edge stitch it neatly on the front than to stitch in the ditch to catch it on the back, which is what you'd have to do if you apply it to the front side of the quilt first.

http://www.noqers.org/tips.htm; 1/02/97