Monday 15 March 2010

Binding & Corners

It's quite hard to take pictures whilst working on binding, had I been an octopus I would have managed quite well or a monkey with a useful tail..... alas, I am only human, so, here goes....
I almost always trim my quilts leaving 1/4" of batting/wadding past the edge of the quilt, this makes a lovely plump binding. I then sew on the binding using a walking foot and with my needle well over on the right, with the seam allowance 1/4" from the edge of the top... I stop sewing at the point that will allow me to leave the needle down, pivot my work and then sew off the quilt at a 45 degree angle... can you see that?
See? I haven't found another tutorial that does this.... I sew right off the quilt at this point, if it's not quite 45 degrees or quite into the corner I pop it back under the needle and sew again, it's important to get this accurate....
Turn the work, lift the binding up. making another 45 degree diagonal and following the stitch line....
then fold the binding back down on top of the corner, line everything up well...
then stitch from just before the binding right the way down the quilt edge, this is a lot of layers so go steady with the speed.....
Now then, flip over to the back of the quilt and roll binding over to the back. I'm still hand stitching the back of my bindings, I use an invisible stitch, you can see them a bit here because I used a dark thread.. to help you see it.... I sew right up to the edge of the corner though, this is the other thing I haven't found on any other tutorial...
I then pass the needle from the edge, back to the mitre corner...
... and make a securing stitch to keep it all steady...
then I fold down the top, usually rolling it over my needle to get a good crisp corner
(I know it is looking a bit round here, it's a two handed job really and my other hand is the camera man! ha ha ha) I make another securing stitch here and continue stitching along to the next corner. Sometimes it needs to be played with a little to get it just
right, sometimes it is necessary to trim off a tiny bit of the batting inside if the corner is too full.
I find this method works very well for me and I often have people commenting on my corners and binding, so I must be doing something right eh...
any questions?
Does it make sense?
Will you try it?
I am going to work on my hands now, they look terribly neglected in these photos, which, I confess, they are... tut tut tut!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting! I stitch the 45 degree but never handstitch into the corner the way you do. Looks like a great technique. I tend to fold my corners opposite from the direction on the front side, not sure this technique would work for me? Then again, stitching down might reduce the bulk and make the corners lay flatter w/o turning to opposite directions. I must give this a try on my next project! Thanks for sharing. Love the color of that binding too.... Valerie

Vicki said...

Good Job, Angie!

Maybe you could add how wide you cut the binding and how it's prepped for those not familiar.

And all this from the gal that INSISTED that she couldn't teach...just a couple years ago as I remember! :-)

Looks like you are loving what you're doing. I'm thrilled for you.

Keep up the great work,
Vicki

Helen McNaught @ AuntyHennys said...

This is so great..... especially your hint to sew off at the 45 degree and also the hand stitch right to the edge - I'm going to try this method with the quilt I'm just about to finish - will let you know how I go! Thanks for the great tutorial - and here is my hint for you... if you have a lap-top computer with built in camera you can photograph without having to hold a camera through photo booth or similar and then upload to your blog. (I just face the computer screen towards the item I want to capture) Hope this makes sense!

Happy Sewing!

Helen said...

Well done. Think your tutorial is great and your nails look better than mine! So many people get confused on the 45ยบ part.Bjs Helen