Quilt Binding

WARNING!! Picture heavy. Elbee asked how I made the binding on the baby blanket I made this past Saturday night. Here goes:

1. I start with strips 3" wide. You can use strips cut on the cross-wise grain or the bias. With a plaid, I'll use the bias as I like the way it looks. I generally use the cross-grain on everything unless I am going around curves.

2. Fold your strip in half and iron. Starting on the middle of one edge, line up the edge of the strip and the edge of blanket/quilt and sew a scant 1/2". When you get 1/2" from the corner, STOP with your needle down.

3. Turn the fabric, and then lift your needle. Pull your fabric out from under your presser foot and fold back the binding - like this.




4. Fold you binding back down over the fold.

5. Put your fabric back underneath the presser foot and starting at the beginning of the seam, sew a scant 1/2" to the next corner.

The corner should look like this from an inside view.

6. Iron the binding up and over to the other side.

7. Sew about 1/8" to the right of the binding edge.

This is what the other side should look like.

My sewing is not perfect, but it works. If I have the time and am in the mood, I'll hand sew the binding to the back, so that there is not a line of stitching showing around the edge. But when you are a Procrastinator you do what you've got to do to get it done!

If I've left something out, let me know and I'll try to fix it.

Happy Sewing!