Part 5: Cutting binding strips

Part 5 - Cutting Binding Strips

The binding is made up of fabric strips that we will sew onto our quilts. Binding neatens the edge of our project by acting as a frame or border. A two-fold binding is the most common type. The term describes attaching folded strips of fabric to the outside of our quilt, folding them round, and then finishing the edges to give the quilt a nice, neat finish.

In this lesson, you will need:

• Batting
• Quilt top
• Masking tape
• No 3 Cotton Darner
• Quilter's pins
• Contrasting thread
• Quilt back
• No 8 cotton pearl thread
• Sewing machine
• Iron
• Pressing mat
• Scrap fabric for your binding
• Rotary cutter

Mark and cut binding strips

A two-fold binding is applied to your quilt top, stitched to the quilt and hand-finished on the reverse.

Making a two-fold binding at home

1. Find a scrap of fabric. If buying new fabric, look for a 114 inch or 120 inch wide quilting cotton.
2. Fold the fabric selvedge to selvedge, and press along the fold. As mine is a remnant, the selvedge has been removed from the section.
3. Press your fabric with a hot iron. Line up all of your edges. If you are doing this with linen, keep an eye on the warp and weft of your fabric, making sure they are lined up so both sides of the folded fabric are straight.

Tip: most natural fabrics can be pressed at high heat. If unsure, start on a lower heat and work your way up.

1. Once your fabric is ironed and lying flat, give it a final check to make sure it's all lined up.
2. Cut your binding to your desired width. I am cutting mine 7.5cm (3 in).

Tip: if you are working with fabric that is 150 cm (59 in) long and a bit too wide to fold and keep on your table, you can always fold it again and make sure your original fold is again straight with your selvedge end. This will make it more manageable to cut out.

1. Use your cutting mat and quilter's ruler to line up the edge of your fabric.
2. Mark the straight line with white chalk.
3. Firmly pressing down, trim the edge using a rotary cutter and a quilter's ruler to make all the binding cut out straight.
4. Using a quilter's ruler, mark out a series of strips every 7.5 cm (3 in) across the width of the fabric.
5. Cut along the marked lines with a rotary cutter and finish off with scissors. Cut enough strips to go around the outer edge of your quilt.

Tip: if you don't have a rotary cutter, you can do the same thing using chalk to draw a line. I like to take the ruler and line it up on the chalk line drawing it on the next one. It is quite handy to draw all your binding on the chalk onto your fabric and then out after. It saves you a little bit of time.

Formula for binding strips

For my binding, I like to work with 7.62 cm (3 in) strips of fabric, which are then folded in half lengthwise to create a 3.81 cm (1.5 in) strip of folded straight binding.

To work out how long your binding needs to go around the entirety of your quilt edges, you can use this calculation.

You can swap between centimetres or inches, depending on what measurements you use. For this example, I am using centimetres.

1. Measure the length and width of your quilt. Add these measurements together and multiply by 2.

Example: 120 cm + 100 cm = 220 cm x 2 = 440 cm

1. Add an extra 60–80 cm for joining seams.

Example: 440 cm + 60 cm = 500 cm

1. Divide the perimeter of your quilt by the usable width of the fabric you are going to use for your binding (standard fabric widths are around 112–140cm, but can be wider than this).

Example: 550 cm ÷ 140 cm = 3.57cm (round up to 4 cm strips).

In this example, we now know that I need 4 strips, each 140cm long, to make a binding long enough to go around the edge of my quilt.

To work out how much fabric you need to make that binding:

1. Multiply the number of strips by how wide you want your binding to be. In this example, our binding strips are 7.62 cm (3 in) wide.

Example: 4 strips x 7.62 cm = 30.48 cm (round up to 30.5 cm of fabric).

In conclusion, to bind our example quilt measuring 120 cm x 100 cm, we would need 4 strips of 140 cm wide fabric, and we would need 30.5 cm of fabric to be able to make those strips for our binding.

If you want to make wider binding, then adjust your binding width when working out how much fabric you will need in Step 4.

Notes:

• Fold the fabric for your binding selvedge to selvedge before cutting your strips.
• If you are using scraps of fabric, ensure that when you sew all the strips together you have enough to cover the final measurement in step 2.
• The binding strip measurement is the binding before it is folded in half to create the final binding. So a 7.62 cm (3 in) binding strip will become 3.81 cm (1.5 in) when folded ready to place on your quilt.

Square out your binding strips

1. Trim each end of your strip.
2. Square off the ends of the binding strips. Lining up the straight ends of the ruler with the straight ends of the fabric, trim the ends of the binding, repeating on all the edges.