Quilt binding tutorial Part 1

In this first post I am going to show you the easiest way to get the binding on your quilt, I will post the next part tomorrow.

My sister taught me how to do this OVER THE PHONE. Yea I know shes amazing! But since I had this UFO sitting around I thought I would do a tutorial about it just in case anyone thinks this part of quilting is the hard part. This part is probably the easiest.

This is a quilted panel I had laying around that needed binding.


First Measure your quilt to see how many inches of binding you are going to need.

Mine measure 156 inches, so I have to put two strips together to make it 160 inches long. I always used more just in case I cant add that day :)

Lay your ends together like this.
sew it diagonal like this

trim it

and it will lay like this,
so when you fold it it wont bunch up all in one place

Then you fold it in half and press it.
Yes PRESS IT! I know I hate to iron too but DO IT!

Put your raw edge of your binding to the raw edge of your quilt top. Leave a "tail" of about two inches. Start at the bottom of the quilt, but not at a corner. That will just be a big pain in the butt.

Sew to the corner and take your quilt off the machine. So that you can "Miter" the corner. Fold your binding up like this.

Now fold the binding back down. This I had to really mess with to learn but once i got the concept it was second nature. Do not try to miter without taking it off the machine. I tried to do that and it just made it harder. oh and if you are a lock stitch freak? don't do that either its just not needed.

once you get all the way around your quilt and you have mitered all of your corners you are going to be here, and wow what now?

Well we need this to have that diagonal type seam like we did when we sewed the two pieces of binding together. and this is how we do it.

Fold the end to the side, it will make a "triangle"
(I think these last two pic will make you understand how to fold it)

Tuck the "beginning" of the binding inside of the triangle.

Lay it down and sew it down

That has your binding attached to your quilt. you have sewn through all three layers the top the batting and the backing. Now this becomes a "take along" project. or a TV project. you aren't confined to do this in your sewing room any longer.