After you have gotten your favorite quilt (or maybe not so favorite) from the long armer and you’ve squared up your quilt, it’s time to put the Binding on it.
The binding is like the picture frame of your quilt. The binding also seals in the quilting so that it won’t come out.
If my quilt is super busy, I like to put a textured single-color fabric around the edge.
If it’s not so busy, my favorite is a good striped or plaid fabric.
But sometimes striped or plaid fabric is not on diagonal so I need to make my binding so that it looks more like a candy cane along the edge of my quilt. That is what I like best.
Tools Needed
- Rotary cutter
- Long ruler – 24″ at least, but if you have a yard stick that would be better, and it needs to have a 45 degree line on it
- Cutting mat
- Fabric
- Sewing Machine
- Matching Thread
**A lot of this post is a duplicate of a past post, but then I went into detail on how to line up your stripes.**
How Much Fabric Do You Need? (A Little Bit of Quilt Math)
We want to find the perimeter of the quilt. I know we learned that back in high school geometry, so I’m going to break that down for you.
Take the final measurement of the your quilt, both across the top (A) and down the side (B). If you go all the way around your quilt, you should have two A measurements and two B measurements. This is the perimeter.
Perimeter = ( A + B ) x 2
We want to make sure we have enough fabric to go all the way around the perimeter of the quilt.
Assuming the width of fabric (wof) of the fabric you want to use for your binding is 42 inches, we then take the Perimeter and divide it by 42.
This is how many strips of binding you will need to cut to go all the way around. If you end up with a descimal, round up.
Some quilters like to add an extra 15 inches to the perimeter before they divide by 42 so they have extra binding, but I’ve never needed to do that.
Perimeter / 42 = Strip count (round up)
Generally, most quilters will recommend a strip width of 2 1/2 inches of fabric. So you will then take the Strip count and multiply by 2 1/2 inches. This is how much fabric you will need for your binding.
Strip count x 2 1/2 inches = Fabric in inches for binding
Example
My quilt measures 50 in x 60 in.
- A = 50 in, B = 60 in
- Perimeter = (A + B) x 2 = (50 in + 60 in) x 2 = 110 x 2 = 220 in
- Strip Count = P / 42 = 220 in/ 42 = 5.23 strips or 6 strips (always rounding up)
- Binding fabric = Strip count x 2.5 in = 6 x 2.5 in = 15 in or 1/2 yd (rounding up)
So when you go to the quilt store, you need to get 1/2 yd for your binding.
This math is the same if you’re doing strip binding or biased binding. The overall square inches will be the same, they’re just made differently.
Creating the Binding
Now it’s time to make the binding.
Take your yardage that you purchased for your binding, give it a good iron, then lay it out flat on your cutting mat. We want to start with nicely square fabric. So square up those edges.
Next, open up the fabric, so it’s extended to the full width of fabric across your cutting mat. A large cutting mat is ideal. Mine is 24″ x 36″.
Find the 45 degree line on your ruler and line it up with the edge of your fabric. Your ruler will now go diagonally across your fabric. You want to lay it out so the ruler goes over the center part of your fabric, so not to close to either side of the salvage.
Cut your fabric along the long edge of your ruler. (You will be cutting diagonally.) Cut all the way across your piece of fabric.
If your ruler isn’t king enough, cut along the edge, peel back the fabric, line up the ruler again, and cut the rest of the way.
You will end up with two pieces of fabric that half salvage on one side and a diagonal cut on the other.
Right sides together, line up your two salvage edges.
Sew the two pieces along the salvedge edge 1/4″ from where the salvage stops.
Trim off the salvage and press the seam open on both sides of the fabric.
You will now have a piece of fabric that has a seam in the middle with two diagonal edges.
We will now start cutting our strips. We are going to cut them along the diagonal edge. So bring it back to the cutting mat and lay it out so you can cut on the diagonal line.
If your ruler will not cut the full length of the diagonal, you have two options.
1- You can cut along how much you can cut, then move the ruler and cut again.
2- Fold over part of it so the raw diagonal edges line up together, and cut your strips this way.
Cut your entire piece of fabric at 2.5 in x wof on the diagonal. (You do not need to worry about how many strips you calculated above, you need to do it for your entire piece of fabric.)
Because these are cut on the diagonal, you will end up with a lot more strips than you normally would with regular strip binding.
It’s now time to sew your binding together. If you lay out your strips end to end, you can see how each end of your strips are already cut on the diagonal.
Lay out your binding strips, right sides together, so they overlap at a 90 degree angle. You want them to over hang 1/4″ on each end. Now, adjust the top one so that you can see that the red stripes are lined up on both sides where the fabric overlaps. This will create an off-set of the top piece.
Draw a line from one intersection to the other intersection diagonally.
Pin your pieces together.
Sew along the line that you drew.
Flip it over to make sure that the stripes line up.
Trim off the dog ears and any excess fabric and press the seams OPEN.
Once you have all the strips together, you’re going to lay it long-ways on the ironing board with the right sides down.
Fold in half so that the raw edges are lining up together and the width of your binding is now roughly 1 1/4″. Iron it flat all the way down the whole length of your binding.
For ease of use, I like to then wrap it around my pen to create a binding cinnamon roll. Now it’s ready to put on the quilt.
Questions
If you have any questions, please go watch the YouTube video (above). I go into much more detail in the video, and you can watch it and follow along.
If you have questions after that, drop them in my comment section below, or on the comment section of the video and I will come and answer them.
Tag me!
I would love to see your progress. Just tag me at #theashleytomlinson or #ashley_sunnymade and I’ll be able to see you on social media.
I want to see how they turn out!
Happy sewing!
