Video Transcript for: Quilt Binding – Simple Steps for Joining Ends

Welcome to the Clearview of Quilting.  I’m Marci Baker of Alicia’s Attic.

Today I’m going to share with you how to join the ends of your binding so that no one can tell the last seem from any other.

Here I’ve made up a sample quilt.  I have my top, my batting, and my backing; and I have started applying these strips to the quilt. At the beginning, I leave a tail of eight to 10 inches.  I back-stitch and apply the binding to the quilt.  Then I would miter the corners and come around, to the other, and I will stop about 8 to 10 inches away.

The more space you leave here the easier this is going to be.  I leave a tail of about 8 to 10 inches.  Notice that this binding is not folded in half. I don’t pre-fold my binding because it turns out that whenever you’re working with your binding strips, you need more fabric on the

outside than you do on the inside. If you’ve ever found a fold that didn’t fall right where you expected, it’s because you are going to have more fabric on the outside your binding than you are on the inside.

Another thing I vary are my strips, depending on how thick my batting is.  This batting is only an eight inch thick.  And I’m doing a quarter inch seam allowance because I want to finish 1/4 inch on the front as well as on the back.  This is a 1 3/4 inch wide strip.  We’ve got our binding applied, and we’ve got our ends, we’ve left open 8 to 10 inches.

Now we’re going to find the point that matters. I’m going to put the strips right-sides together.

Notice that they’re open, not folded in half.  I’m going to find the point where these matchup, about halfway between the two ends.  I’m not so loose that I’m away from the quilt, and I’m not so tight that I’m pulling up either end that my binding; but just where the binding falls nice and neat along the quilt.

I have a critical point that I’m gonna pin… That critical point is my seam allowance end. Since I’m doing quarter-inch, it’ll be a 1/4 inch in where those two match, and I’m going to pin that in place. So I’m going to pin the point… that critical point and I’m just gonna catch a couple threads on this side, and a couple threads on that side. And I’m going to be able to sew that

together. So now we have that critical point pinned, and I’m going to take and lay this out and you have to bunch up the quilt here.

Bunch the quilt up and I’m going to lay one strip flat.  I like to work on a table when I’m doing this. Then I’m going to take and twist this other end around so that I have these two strips lying on top of each other and that their flat.

Once I get it so that this is flat and this is flat over here, I’m going to be sewing from where these two edges cross, to where these two edges cross, in a straight line.

It turns out it doesn’t matter if I get an exact 45, I could even do this right here.  Where I twist it back a little bit. But what I’m gonna need to do is pin this. And I’ll take two pins…and pin it this way.  Now, when I sew from this point over to this point, I will be going through my critical point. That critical point means this is going to fit. Let me go ahead and sew that.

I’ve sewn those together and here you can see I made sure to stitch from where those to cross to where those two cross. My critical point was about there. But I had to pull that pin out so I didn’t stitch over it. Now I’m going to check before I cut these becauseI want to make sure that is going to fit.  So I just take this and fold it, or just pull it, and I can see that it is going to lay nice and neat on my quilt top.

Now that I know it fits I’m going to take and trim this to a quarter-inch.  I’m going to press that seem open.  (And i tend to just finger-press it.)  Now that this folds over and fits I’m ready to stitch it down.

That’s how to join your binding!  See?  You can’t tell that last seam from any other seam, and we did it without a ruler, without a lot of measuring, just a couple of pins.

Thanks for joining me, I’m Marci Baker with Quilt With Marci Baker and Alicia’s Attic.