Binding Your Quilt -Quick as a Fox Quilt Along

Binding your Quilt

Welcome everyone to the Quick as a Fox Quilt Along!  If you are just finding this for the first time, you can find all the previous blocks here and the photo gallery here.

Today we will be finishing up the quilt and hopefully you are keeping right up!  How did your quilting go?

There are a few ways of doing your binding.  The most typical type of binding is what I will be going over today. The images will not match the quilt, but the process is the same.

I am cutting my strips the width of fabric.  I am not cutting it along the bias because we are not binding around a rounded corner, so a regular cut for the binding strip is just fine.

Cut your strips 2 1/4″ X the width of the fabric.  Sew the ends of the strips together so they become long enough to sew around the quilt.

Iron it in half, so it will measure just a little bigger than 1″

Take this snake and pin it to the edge of the quilt on the backside of the quilt.   The raw edge will be matched up with the raw edge of the quilt.  When you start you want to leave a tail {unsewn} about 4-6 inches. You will use this tail to join the other end.

I pinned just the beginning—after I got it going you should be able to keep it on track and along that edge. Sometimes I found that the top fabric might shift a little and cause a pucker. That will be inside the folded binding, so as long as it isn’t a huge one….just keep going.

You want to stop about 6″ or so before you meet the beginning, so you can join them.

Take these 2 ends and lay them out flat and over lap them on top of each other.  You need to pick a spot that you will be cutting on one—this should not be too close to the sewn ends or you will have some trouble with sewing the ends together. Cut the underneath tail and then overlap the top tail and cut it 1/4 ” past it. This is sooo important. You have to give it that seam allowance or your binding will end up too short.

Open up the tails and lay right sides together. I lined them up straight.

Turn it back out and lay it out onto the quilt edge. Should fit perfectly now.  Finish stitching it to the quilt edge.

I take the quilt to the ironing table and iron this…….fold the binding over the edge like you are ready to finish and iron it down flat. So I am ironing on the backside of the quilt and pulling that binding up and over the stitching and ironing it there. I find this helps keep sewn edge from rolling back and when you are ready to sew it on the other side you won’t fight it or the seam its coming from.

When you fold the binding you need to make sure it passes the stitching line.  That is where the backside will be folded and you don’t want to catch the binding on the backside.

When it is folded over you will need to secure it somehow.   Sometimes I use pins… I have heard of girls out there using—clip hair barets, paper binding clips, even 1/4″ wide wonder-under on a roll. {they iron it in that tiny space and it keeps it perfect and ready for stitching}

So fold, secure–fold, secure.. keep going.

Now for finishing it up.

I will be showing you how to machine bind it down. I find this the quickest method-{you know me–quick and cheap}–you most definitly can hand sew this edge down. Skipping under the top layer of the quilt and then pocking up just to take a little bit of the binding again and down into the top layer and skip along to the next spot.  It does make it a more finished quilt edge, but if you are in a hurry….go for the machine.

Here is what the final stitching will look like:

You will notice on the backside you will just be past or right in the ditch of the binding. I recommend using a co-ordinating thread so it doesn’t stand out, because sometimes it will show.  Backside of quilt:

For different kinds of binding you can check out this post: how to bind your quilt

Want to sew along with us? Find all Previous Blocks and Instructions for the Quilt Along Quick as a Fox

To help us all connect and find inspiration from one another, there is a flickr photo gallery group-  Share your progress, choices, and finished blocks there.  If there is anything I know about quilters and sewists, it’s that we are very visual people.  So, please share it so we can all see it.

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