Friday 23 April 2010

Brilliant Binding How To...

I have given you a basic and very, very simple way of joining up the ends of your bindings...
Now I have a different way for you. It may seem very fiddly at first, but the results are wonderful... it is worth persevering because no-one will be able to find your join with this method!!!

1. You will need to leave good long tails at both the start and the end of your binding strips, the longer the tails the easier the join will be....

2. I recommend 5"... 8" will be perfect... this means that you will start sewing your binding on 5" - 8" down from the start... and finish sewing 5" - 8" before the join end..... thus leaving the tails as in this picture.

3 Pin the start of the binding in place and mark the end with a pin, then lay the other end on top of that and cut it 2 1/2" from the pin... exactly 2 1/2", not even a mouse's whisker more or less!!!
IMPORTANT TO NOTE......
these measurements are for 2 1/2" wide binding only...
IF your binding is only 2 1/4" wide you will trim a 2 1/4" distance... if your binding is 3" you will trim 3"... OK??



4. You can just about see here that there is a 2 1/2" overlap with the start and the end of the binding strip


5... you don't see it there? how about this?


6. Now lay the end of the binding open and flat on the table, my ruler is only there to hold the fabric down for my photo....


7. fold up the quilt to allow you to place the beginning end ON TOP diagonally, just like making a mitre... in fact it is another mitre!!


8.. holding with pins, drawer a line from corner to corner....


9. sew it along the marked line... this is a fiddle, just fold your quilt a little bit to allow you to do this. take out the pins....


10. try the binding in place to see whether it has worked perfectly before you cut anything!!!, if you need to adjust it , unpick the seam and do it again perfectly!.. only then trim away the excess triangle... just as when you were joining the binding strips


11.. lay it all flat against the quilt edge and sew with walking foot!!!
That's all there is to it!

It's easy!

3 comments:

doni said...

Bravo!! I've always wanted to seam my binding in an invisible way - but never 'got it'. You made it so simple, I thought "Of course!!! How could I not see that!"
Thanks.

doni @ Oregon coast

Birte said...

Hi Angie
Thanks for the good idea. I will try it on my next quilt.
Love Birte

Laurie said...

I finally had the guts to try this tonight. (I've always been terrified by the "exact 2 1/2" part, so I did the cheater ending where I'd tuck one side into another at an angle, which looked okay but left a lot of bulk.) This is SO much nicer! Thanks for the tutorial.