Binding Tips and Tricks

Good morning National Quilters Circle. It's time for a Take-a-Break Tuesday. We are gonna step back, maybe, from all those projects we're working on. Let's have a little bit of a time to sit back, look at a topic. We're gonna be talking about binding today and if you would like to download the outline of what we're doing today, it will be in the comment section so you can find the link there.

I am so glad to join you. I knew we took a little break, we haven't been together for a while, but it's great to be back with you on Facebook. We are going to take a real step back to the beginning of the year, if you remember in January, and if you haven't seen that January episode, it's in the Video tab at National Quilters Circle. We talked about setting goals for the year and so remember I wrote mine down in big Sharpie and put them here in my sewing area so that I would remember to work on that skill of pressing, cleaning up once a month, which I've really been working on. But the last one on my list was that project, that snowman project that needed to be quilted and it needed binding.

Well, it took me a while to find it so I know if you are all honest, you probably have some project lurking that might take a little bit of a dig to find, but I finally came across the snowman project. I won't unveil it all the way, but this project got worked on, I think maybe a dozen years ago at a quilt retreat, and he became a quilt top, but he's never been quilted and he's never been bound. So, now that I have found it, now hold me accountable to get it quilted, and get the binding on. That binding is gonna be the issue though because I waited 12 years, I don't have binding fabric anymore, so it'll be a little bit of an adventure. Quilt shops are open now, and finding a suitable binding, sometimes we've put that off to the end of the project, hopefully not too far off from the project, not 12 years, but I'll find a binding and I'll bring it back and show you that it's finished, getting it off of my list for the year.

So, okay, let's get into our topic for today, binding tips and tricks. Binding is that very last portion of our quilt that we have a chance to kind of put our stamp on the quilt that we've created. Some people love it, some people hate it, that's okay. It still is the ending portion of our quilt. So when we do, whether we love it or or not, we need to work on getting that outer edge finished because otherwise that quilt can't be used, it can't be laundered.

It needs something to cover the outer edge of our patchwork, creating that finished edge and trying to get some kind of a miter on the corner. Now, these turned out fairly well. Sometimes they don't, and what can be done to kind of change that, and how should I cut my binding? Those are all burning questions that all quilters, especially the very beginning on learning these things wonder, "Well where do I go? What do I do?

What is the common thing?" So we are going to look at binding. Let me get my supplies out here today. Binding can be cut in various ways. We can cut binding on the bias. Bias binding, yes does last longer, if you're creating an heirloom quilt that's going to be used and you want that outer edge to be really, really sturdy, but in general, most of us cut our binding with our length width of grain across the fabric.

So I've got a piece here, I tried to pick something where you can see the back and the front that are different. So this is the inside or the backside of the fabric. Most of us will cut our binding width-of-fabric, WOF, if you've seen that abbreviation and don't recognize, it means width-of-fabric. So most of us will cut width-of-fabric binding and link those together. Now, in that cutting process, there's the other thing to determine, what width are we going to cut our binding.

Some patterns will have it listed, what width that they want you to cut the binding and the yardage is figured according to that. So you'll probably wanna follow that unless you have a preference. Note that before you buy your fabric so that you know for sure that you have enough. Now when I was beginning the process, my instructor used 2 1/2, so 2 1/2 inch wide binding is what I tend to go toward. A 2 1/4 inch binding is a little bit smaller in the end, a little bit more in the traditional width of a binding, but that is a personal thing.

You can decide an 1 1/4 or an 1 1/2 width-of-fabric. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and cut these, so we have a couple of strips to work with today. So I've lined up the ruler with my fold here, press my fabric. Always make sure that you have fabric that's nice and flat, doesn't have any wrinkles in it. Lined up a line on my ruler with the fold, I usually tend to cut away from my body with the fold at the closest to me so that I know that I'm kind of pushing the fabric away.

Now I've made a cut for five here, knowing that 2 1/2 times two is five 'cause I need two strips. So I'd like to cut as many widths under my ruler as possible. I could go up to three, but today I don't quite need that, so I just need five there, and then I will cut that in half to 2 1/2. Now always remember one, 2 1/2. I'm always counting to make sure I'm on the right line so that I have the appropriate width.

It's the saddest thing in the world to cut a bunch of strips at 2 1/2 and then cut like one at 2 1/4. Make sure you know which width you're going to, count out loud if you need to to remind yourself what width you're actually cutting consistency here. Okay, now once we have the width of fabric, the joining of those pieces is important to create a long strip. So there are, whoops, a couple of ways we can go about that. You can do end-to-end.

It's not the end of the world, if you're really short on fabric and you can't waste anything, in a diagonal seam to do end-to-end, you would take the salvages, of course, away, but to do end-to-end. But because of the way this is folded and applied to the quilt, you kind of get a buildup of fabric in the thick spot in the binding. So what mostly, we end up doing is doing a diagonal seam, and I have this fun, little 2 1/2 inch square ruler that I tend to keep handy. I kind of have noted him as my binding tool. It's only used for marking lines.

I use it for other trimming things too, but I tend to keep it with the things when I'm making binding because as I lay the diagonal, there's a nice diagonal line across this tool, that diagonal at the bottom of my strip, I can then go in and make a diagonal line that will be my stitching line for joining pieces of my binding. Now, there's my diagonal line. I think you can pick that up. I used a friction pen that's dark so that you could pick that up. A lot of times I'll use just a really light pencil line because it's on the backside of the fabric and it only needs to be seen by me long enough to get across that.

Some people have no problem stitching that diagonal just by shooting across between the fabrics. Now I'm gonna align these how I'm going, how I do it for joining, and I have to think about this piece to this piece. Some people can easily eye going that diagonal from that intersection to this one across without drawing a line, but every time I try to do that I tend to get a sag in my line, and I want to have this be a nice, straight strip when I get done, the idea is I stitch there and I fold back, and I will have, now, a continuous strip for my binding. Now you saw me flip pieces around because we can join them together wrong, end up having something that looks like this, a mitered corner. The idea is to create a long straight strip.

So, if the bottom piece is laid this way, whoops, this way and we've got the diagonal here, when I open back, we create that continuous strip. Taking that over to the sewing machine then, we're gonna join those pieces together. If you need to put a pin to help hold them in place, one on top of the other do so, otherwise, if you can easily hold it and slide it under your machine, that will work, too. Now, if I have my fabrics laid properly and that line is in the right spot, I should have all my fabric to the left of the sewing machine. That will be the clue.

Sometimes we still will join things together the wrong way, and open it and go, "Oh, I thought I had it right." So don't feel bad if that happens. It's a short seam, it's easy to take out so that we can join those nicely together. And in this little demo, I just need a couple of strips to show you what I'm gonna be doing. So, now that I have that stitched across the diagonal, going to come in and use my iron, and I'm gonna open up that seam. Now there is a controversy whether you put the seams to one side or you open them, it's quilter's choice at this point.

I open mine up to try and reduce the bulk and then press that flat. So let's come in with the iron and press that so that it's not a thick spot. Then I come in with the scissors. You could trim with a rotary cutter, but you have to keep flipping pieces away, and make sure you don't snag the underneath portion. Scissors works very easily to come in here and trim threads, and approximately 1/4 inch seam allowance left behind, since it's going to be on the inside, close counts at this point, you don't want to get too close though, we don't want it to fray, but leaving approximately 1/4 inch seam there.

Now we have prepared a long piece for binding and in some quilts if you have a quilt that is a queen sized or a king size, you might be joining 8 to up to 10 of these strips together. So the idea is to have a nice straight piece that doesn't have kind of a wonkiness to it, so try to get that as joined as nicely as possible. Now we're gonna prepare the beginning portion of the strip, and this is a little trick that I learned watching, I believe it was, I gotta think of her name real quick, Alex Anderson, I believe. This is her little trick for preparing the beginning portion that you're gonna stitch to the quilt. Now there are all kinds of binding tools on the market.

There are techniques for joining the two pieces together when you get to the very end, there are a lot of different things on the market. The problem is either I can't find the tool when I need it, or I can't remember how to use the tool when I get to it. So I found this technique to be pretty foolproof. So what I did was I folded to make a 45 degree angle, then I'm folding again. I'm gonna press the rest of my binding here in half so that the right side is in the outside, but this is my preparation.

It's kind of like creating a tunnel that my binding, the end of my binding will go into at the very end. I'm gonna trim away, there's the diagonal across there where I folded. I'm going to trim and leave approximately 1/4 inch of fabric, that will be the seam allowance on the inside of my tunnel, right here. I'm gonna press the rest of this really quickly. Now when it comes to the pressing portion here, try to align the cut edges one over the top of the other.

The idea is then that creates a very consistent width of strip for you to use as your binding, and you don't wanna, if it's not quite lined up, you may actually miss the edge of the fabric, and when you're stitching it on, and have a consistency problem there. So trying to press this right in half, I was pressing some black binding for a project coming up last evening and the lighting as we get older, we all know that we need a little bit more lighting. It was a little bit rough trying to find the exact fold until this morning. I waited until I had better lighting. So good lighting is another thing to think about in your sewing room.

We all like to add a little bit of extra light in those workrooms, in our studios, when we are working on colors that are harder to see. The other thing is that, when you're working on a solid fabric, solid colors, so the right and wrong side don't seem to be much different. Maybe it's batiks or solid color fabric. Now when you go to join those end-to-end, remember or try to keep track of which side you're using as the right side so that all of the seams end up on the inside of your binding. And why do I stress this point?

I have joined them back and forth thinking, "Well, it's solid fabric, it won't make a difference." But if you denote one side as the wrong side and one as the right side, you don't want to have seam sometimes on the outside of your binding and some on the inside of your binding. So follow suit there. Make sure that you know which your, which side of the fabric you're working with. Now a lot of times what I do when I get this long strip is that I wrap my binding into a little bit of a skein or a loop here so that it's not in a big twisted knot when I try to apply it to my quilt top. So I've got this piece ready to go, I'm gonna lay it by the by the sewing machine.

Next what you will need to do is prepare. I've got a small quilt sandwich here and we're going to prepare. We're gonna pretend this is our quilt top, and what I need to do is trim. Now I've marked it and it's kind of smudged, but if you see there's a line on my batting, I'm going to leave about 1/8 of an inch of batting beyond my quilt top so that when I get done, my binding will actually be filled, it won't be hollow inside. So as I trim my backing and my batting, I'm going to leave just a little bit of that batting to extend beyond my quilt top.

If anybody has questions today, you could add those into the comments. Let us know where you're watching from. Let me know what, are you close to getting binding onto a quilt top or a project that you're working on? Because once we get to the binding, it's the downhill. It's great to know that you're finishing up some projects.

Okay, now I have this trimmed and ready for binding to be applied. So my backing and my binding or batting are about 1/8 of an inch beyond my quilt top here, and then I'm going to apply the binding. Yes, the colors are an interesting combination, but I needed contrast so you can see what I was doing. So I probably wouldn't be putting a red binding on a purple project too often, but well, if my granddaughter's asked, maybe I would. Okay, now this is where that little tunnel that you created, this is where this comes into play.

We are gonna apply the binding to our quilt top and I should have folded that the other direction. Hmm, let me refold it here so it'd be a better visibility. When you go to make your 45 degree angle, it can be folded in either direction, but in order for me to show you exactly how to do it and how to lodge that piece, the very beginning, I need it folded the opposite direction. That's how it goes, right when you're live. Okay, I'm gonna be trimming it.

Now the tip on doing this, Alex Anderson had the idea of going around and putting in the tunnel. I had a viewer, when I worked for a quilt magazine, give us a tip about at the beginning, normally we would start stitching about here and go toward the corner leaving a tail at the very beginning for the overlap, but this viewer talked about starting with one layer. So opening the binding up and stitching from the diagonal here that we've created, stitching 1/4 inch, which is what the seam allowance you're gonna want to use, stitch from here down about 3 inches. And after I tried it, I thought, "How brilliant", because this tends to shift a little when we get around to putting things in the tail, and by doing that little first stitch, it keeps everything in place. And I wish I knew their name, I would give them credit today, but I did not reserve, I didn't copy down the name of the person who gave the tip, but let's get that first 3 inches done.

It was a game changer when I tried doing it this way, I was like, "Oh!" Sometimes people think of the most ingenious things. Okay, so I've got this stitched about 3 inches here. Now I'm going to fold my binding back, and I can begin down just a ways. I need that still to be a tunnel and this to be free a bit, so about an inch or two down, and then I'm gonna approach my corner and I'm gonna approach that very carefully because when we get to corners, this is where we all have issues, I think. I remember being a new quilter, and none of my corners turned out, and I was so frustrated, I'd put so much time into my quilt top that I was just heartbroken when I couldn't figure out how to get mitered corners.

So what I'm doing is I'm stitching all the way to within 1/4 inch of the quilt top corner. So let's see if I were to mark on here, so I'm about right here. Visually, we kind of know where 1/4 inch is into that. So that's what I'm, underneath the machine, that's where I'm at right now. I'm going to take a tack stich, break thread.

We're gonna take it out of the machine. I know it's a lot easier if we could just somehow keep going, but it doesn't work out quite that way. So I have now stopped within 1/4 inch underneath there, of my piece, fold up and away from my quilt top and fold back. Now that's an easy instruction. Most of us have done that before, but when we pull this tight, so this makes a perfect corner, we tend to get a dimple in the corner of our binding.

And by being, a quilt instructor once told me, "Be a little more sloppy." I was like, "What, more sloppy?" I didn't understand what she meant. and that means that instead of pulling that tighter on the corner, have it extend just about 1/8 of an inch, just a little. Anywhere from maybe, you know, it's around 1/8 is what I guess I can explain. And if you try it, you'll see what I mean. By letting that extend just a little bit, it gives us more fabric to make it around the corner.

Okay, then I'm putting it back in the machine and I'm starting at that spot visually underneath there where I stopped before. I'm gonna do a tack stitch, so I'm about a 1/4 inch from both corners. Now I'm gonna proceed down this side of the quilt. That little bit of extra batting that we leave behind there does help fill that binding so it's not empty. I know when I've done just a few competition items and when I've gotten comments back from judges, that's the thing that I usually, they say, hmm, they've said at the beginning "Your your binding is hollow." It doesn't have any fabric or any batting inside of it which makes it wear more.

If it's filled, it's kind of rounded and it wears better. Okay, we're gonna do another corner just so we remember because we see things once, good. See two or three times, it's when we start to actually start to make it part of our thought processes. So pulled back, leaving just a little extra on the corner and then you can feel that fold underneath there so you know where to put your needle in and begin down the next side of your quilt top. Make sure everything's flat underneath as you put it back in.

It's easy to accidentally get kind of a, as you pull it out of the machine and back in, to get something to fold back the wrong direction. So we can go back around here. Now, I could do the other two corners for you live, but you've seen it twice and you now have it available in video so you can go back and watch that. What I need to do is simulate the closure over here. So we are going to pretend that we've come down this side and we're gonna leave it.

It's gonna be long. There are always times when we get around and we're like, oh, so close. We needed just a little bit more and we have to add one more strip or one more piece of of binding, but we're gonna simulate it here as we approach. Now I've got get this out of the way, I've got my tail of, that needs to go into that little space and let me get just, within about an inch of where you prepared. I'm gonna break thread and take it out so you can see what I'm going to do here.

I would leave it under the machine at this point and I'm usually working right here, but because I can't move my camera and I'm a one-person show here, I want you to see what I'm doing. Okay, underneath there is my little tunnel, right? I need to cut this so it fits inside of that, so, if I fold back, I can kind of see where my fold is there. I need it to be longer than that, and what I usually do is I'm eyeing it. I'm over the top, seeing the angle underneath, so I know I'm long.

It's always better to cut a little and leave it long, and you can always take more off but you can't put it back on. So I'm good there. Okay, I can now trim the other side 'cause what I wanna do is create a diagonal and once you do one of these, you'll be thinking, "Okay, that piece underneath there needs to be shorter. The one on top needs to be longer. It's going to fit inside of my little tunnel.

It's gonna lay down there." Okay, we've got a couple questions. Someone's making a t-shirt quilt. Should use a t-shirt binding. Mm, I probably would not. T-shirt fabric is so soft and stretchy that it would give you just one more headache, I'm afraid.

I would just use a cotton bind binding for that. Why leave extra batting? Oh, and we're gonna, I'm gonna show you in just a minute when I roll this over, and show you some hand stitching. Let's see how to start the binding at the very beginning. You know that's what's really great is that this video lives in the Videos tab at National Quilters Circle and you can go back and watch it again and you can actually stop it so that you could even manipulate your own binding right along with me.

So because I'm limited on time, I can't go back to the very beginning now. But let's see, what else? Cut time before you cut your backing and binding. Oh, I'm pretending this is a quilt top. My fabric at the top here, I'm pretending that's a quilt top.

A quilt top usually has, you know, your 1/4 inch seam on the outer edge. You've gotten it, everything pieced together and you're ready to layer it. So that means the batting and the backing are always larger. Okay, now that I've tucked my piece into the little tunnel and I've overlapped my stitching just a bit, I can now cut thread and take it out. Okay, and we're gonna cut this because he was a simulation, so he is not in the way and trim some threads.

We always have corners where we break thread and take it out of the machine. Now to get the idea of why we leave extra batting, when I start to roll this over toward the back and I roll that fold to line up with my stitching line, now my binding will have batting in it and will be filled, and it'll be the same thickness as my quilt top. So that's why we leave that extra little piece of batting that extends so that it fills the batting as it's rolled over. Now the other portion that I wanted to really quickly go over, because we were talking about this overlap method is that it's tucked and it's not stitched. And some people will say, "But I want it stitched." Well, you're gonna stitch, well most of us, not everyone will be stitching by hand on the backside of our quilt top.

So I figure why not stitch this by hand, also. I can do some small stitches in that diagonal. There's my overlap right there, one inside the other. So I can go in and lodge my thread, take those stitches to hide, be hidden stitched, right along the edge there and keep going until I'm to the other side, and close the other side also. Now let's see if there's any other questions while I'm stitching this that I can talk to you about.

Can you use flannel for binding? Yes you can. I would always opt for the 2 1/2 inch wide binding if I'm using flannel just because with the 2 1/4, it's very narrow, it's a narrower binding. And with the thickness of flannel, I would opt for the little bit wider. Makes a little easier to get around the corner and you can probably trim that batting a little closer, just a little tiny bit of it in there, and of course my thread needle came unthreaded.

So here's a little tool that I have enjoyed having because I like to use very fine needles for binding. It is the Clover needle threader and it works amazing. Made by Clover, a little needle threader that works on the really small fine needles because they're very hard to thread. The eye is very small, but it makes a very, very small hole in your fabric when you're doing binding. So it's very easy to manipulate and do that.

So I'm closing that diagonal by hand, probably not my best stitching, but as I flip that to the other side, I can drop my needle because I'm now on at the edge where the binding meets the quilt top. I can drop my needle to the backside and I am ready to stitch my binding on the backside. So I don't even have to make a knot at that point. Now the last thing that I wanted to address was that binding at that corner. Remember that sloppy corner?

We're gonna go a little long today, but I think we can get away with this, is I wanna move over to a corner and show you the fold, and how well it turns out by being just a little extra sloppy on the corner, of leaving a little fabric to get around. Now what I tend to do is go in and find just the batting in the backing and I trim the corner because we have a lot of fold and fabric on the corner, so I trim that away diagonally, and I also like to use, it's a tool kind of day today. I love to use the little wonder clips to hold my binding in place. For years, I held it just by by hand. As I get older, the wonder clips are wonderful so that I can turn this to the fold, right to my stitching line, and I'm going to fold one side in and then the other to make a nice little miter on the corner, and then as I would hand stitch, I would come in and stitch this side.

Then I'd go into that miter with a couple stitches, poke through to the front, stitch a couple there, poke back through, work my way up the next side, and see how nicely that corner is gonna come into be a perfect miter because we were just a little sloppy as we applied the binding. So that is our trip, our ticks, our tips and tricks for binding today. Thanks for joining me and I really enjoy all of your comments. I will get to the rest of them after the show. I'll drop in and say hello.

Thanks for joining me today.