Thursday, 26 August 2010

How to sew a pieced binding

While staring into space concentrating at work today I decided to go for the pieced binding because I wasn't sure how I would be able to accurately measure the sides so that the binding changed colour at the corners.  I know that's a little obsessive but it's my engineering side creeping back in.


I pieced the strips together staggering them each by 2" to minimise wastage when they are cut at 45 degrees.  The seams were pressed open to make less bulk when sewn to the quilt sandwich.


I used the 45 degree line on my ruler to trim off the staggered ends and then measured the width I wanted my binding.  I use a 2 1/4" doubled binding so I cut as many 2 1/4" strips as I could.  You should get 13 out of a width of fabric.


The short strips were sewn end to end and the seams pressed open.  The binding was then pressed in half and voila!  A gorgeous pile of pieced double binding ready to be sewn to my quilt tomorrow.


Be careful when you're pressing the binding in half because it is now cut on the bias so it's quite easy to distort the strips.  Make sure to press straight down rather than pushing the fabric along the ironing board.
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Location: Ryton, Tyne And Wear, UK

3 comments:

  1. Miss Hillbilly26 August 2010 at 00:53

    I never even thought of the bulk at the corners, that wouldn't be good. I love how you pieced your binding, can't wait to see it finished!

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  2. Shelley: the Dread Pirate Rodgers26 August 2010 at 03:31

    oh! you were *so* close to doing it the easy way! :-) I have a tutorial about making yards of continuous bias from yardage .. or remnants .. but I *also* love making diagonally striped binding from strip sets!

    My tutorial is at http://pir8.freeservers.com/quilting/CBT/index.htm There's a PDF version of the tutorial that you can print out for yourself. Basically, make your strip set as you did but don't bother about offsetting the ends. Then use my tutorial and use your strip set as though it was yardage. No annoying separate strips to sew together; no worrying about pressing the seam allowances; everything is nicely assembled for you. Just wait until you cut the one, long, spiral line .. you will absolutely be amazed. :-)

    And when it comes time to bind your quilt, I have another tutorial on how to invisibly join the ends of the binding (whether bias or straight of grain) so that the last seam looks *no different* from any other seam in the binding. Easy ... lots of pictures to help you. That tutorial is at http://pir8.freeservers.com/quilting/ending-double-fold-binding/index.htm and there is a PDF for that tutorial also.

    Other than that ... I LOVE LOVE LOVE strip set bindings ... they (obviously) match the quilt top perfectly and adds to the dynamics of the look of the quilt.

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  3. Jill Chapman26 August 2010 at 17:06

    I was going to do it just like that but I couldn't find my scissors anywhere to cut the spiral so I had to use my rotary to do strips!

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