Once you have your quilt sandwich quilted and ready you will need to bind your quilt, things could get pretty messy otherwise! Making your own binding is really easy once you get the hang of it so get the hang of it now!
you will need :
1/2 metre or yard of chosen fabric
rotary cutter and cutting mat (optional)
sewing machine
needle, thread, thimble, pins, scissors.
Firstly square up your quilt by using your rotary cutter and cutting mat. My quilt's are never ever perfectly square!! so just do the best you can. Make sure when you cut that top/batting and backing are all perfectly level at the edges.
Begin by ironing your fabric, you can of course skip this bit but I think it helps a lot during the cutting/binding process to have nice, smooth fabric.
Fold lengthwise and align cut edge with a straight edge on your cutting mat, use your cutter to slice the edge nice and straight, then cut 6.5cm/2.5" strips down the length. Continue until you've cut all your fabric.
To transform all your strips into one super long length, start by laying your first strip right side up horizontally, lay your second strip wrong side up perpendicular/at a right angle to the first as above. Make a mark at the top left hand corner of the top strip, next make a second mark on the top strip where it meets the bottom right hand corner of the bottom strip. Draw a line joining these two marks together, this is where you sew your join, as above.
Trim your seam, 1/4 of an inch or 6mm away from your sewing line. Now lay your second (top strip) right side up. Working at the unjoined edge repeat the above step. Continue until all your strips are joined and seams are trimmed.
Iron all joining seams flat as above.
and your whole strip in half lenghwise as above. You are now ready to attatch your binding.
Starting from the middle of one of the long edges of your quilt, lay your binding along it with the open/cut edge of the binding along the cut edge of your quilt. Start sewing on your binding about 4"/10cm from the end of the binding, leaving a 1/4" or 6mm seam allowance.
Continue machine (or hand) sewing until you get to the first corner stopping about 1/4" or 6mm from the edge then reverse sew about 1/2" or 1cm (see above), snip threads and remove from your machine.
Using the above photo's as reference, carefully fold your binding up into a 45 degree angle from the corner
Start sewing your second side 1/4" or 6mm away from the corner fold you've just made again with a 6mm or 1/4" seam allowance.
Continue sewing your sides and corners as above stopping about 2"/5cm before your staring point.
Snip the end of binding to leave a gap of about 2cm or 3/4" between the edge of the end and the start of the stitches where you began attaching your binding.
Fold the edge of the end of your binding under by about 1cm or 1/2".
Now snip the excess off the beginning of your binding and fold under by about 1cm or 1/2" so that it just overlaps the end of the binding by about 2cm/0.75" or so.
Insert the end of the binding into the beginning of the binding as above.
Now get back onto your machine and sew over to secure the edge. Trim threads and edges to neaten.
Next you need to sew the binding over the edge of the quilt attatching it to the back of the quilt, I always hand stitch the back.
At a midway point along one of the edges of the back of your quilt, sew a few stitches to anchor your thread. I always use 100% cotton sewing thread.
Now fold your binding over to the back of the quilt and begin diagonally stitching it to the back.
Continue ensuring you encase all the unfinished edgings of the quilt nicely.
When you get to a corner, stop approx 1.5" from the edge, fold over the corner of the binding diagonally as shown.
Bring your needle up and begin stitching again as shown in the picture above.
Pull the corner tight so it folds and sits nicely. Continue along remaining edges and corners.
Ta-dah!!! One finished quilt.
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