Not every quilt earns a hand binding. A quilt that lives in the trunk of a car and comes out at a picnic does not need the same finish as a wedding quilt. In this tutorial Yvonne, of The Fabric Hut, walks through the binding she reaches for when she wants a quilt done quickly and still done nicely: sewn to the front by machine, wrapped to the back, and stitched down from the front.
One trick makes the whole thing work, and it is not the sewing. Watch Yvonne work through it below, and the written walkthrough follows underneath.
Why this binding and not another
Yvonne calls this a utilitarian binding, and the name is the honest one. It will not win a ribbon at a quilt show. What it will do is finish a quilt fast and hold up to being used, washed, dragged around and used again. She reaches for it on quilts she expects to wear out and make again, and on anything that has to be finished in a hurry.
It also fixes something else. If you have ever sewn the binding to the front, flipped it to the back and tried to machine stitch it down, you know what happens. The line wanders. Sometimes it catches the binding, sometimes it misses, sometimes it bites deep, and the back never looks smooth.
That wandering has one cause: the binding moves while you sew. Take the movement away and the problem goes with it. Here is what that takes.
What you need
- Binding strips, cut at 2 1/4 or 2 1/2 inches. Yvonne prefers 2 1/4 because she likes a small, tight binding, and 2 1/2 works just as well
- 1/4 inch double sided fusible web tape. Yvonne uses Steam-A-Seam 2, which comes on 40 yard rolls, and there are several comparable brands. That is a great deal of binding per box, so the cost per quilt is small
- Thread that matches your binding, on the spool and in the bobbin
- A quarter inch foot with a guide, or a walking foot
- An open toe foot for the final pass, so you can see the ditch you are sewing in
- A scrap of paper, for a reason that will make sense shortly
Match the thread carefully. One line of stitching ends up in the ditch on the front and the other lands on the binding on the back, so binding colored thread top and bobbin is what keeps both of them quiet. If you are short on the right color, our thread collection is the place to start.
Preparing the binding
Make the binding as you normally would. Join the strips with diagonal seams so the bulk spreads out instead of stacking, and press the whole length in half, wrong sides together. If diagonal joins are new to you, we have a separate tutorial on making the binding that covers them properly.
Adding the fusible tape
This is the extra step, and it is quick. Run the 1/4 inch fusible tape along the folded edge of the binding, close to the fold, all the way down the strip. Press it to fuse it in place.
Now let it cool. Yvonne peels her paper backing while it is still warm in the video, has to fight it, and says so on camera: the paper releases far more easily once the tape has cooled.
There is a decision to make about that paper. Yvonne takes it off before sewing, because once the binding has been folded around a corner the paper becomes awkward to pull out. The cost is a sticky strip, which matters in a moment. Leave the paper on and you avoid the stickiness but the corners get fiddly. Either way works. It is worth knowing why she chose the order she did.
One more note if you ever use this tape for hand binding on the go, which Yvonne does when she wants to stitch without carrying clips: leave a good 1/8 inch clear at the fold so your needle is not going through the tape.
Sewing the binding to the front
Apply the binding to the front of the quilt exactly as if you were going to hand stitch it to the back, with the tape side facing up. Start in the middle of a side, leave a tail long enough to work with at the end, and sew a shallow quarter inch seam all the way around.
Yvonne uses a quarter inch foot with a guide so the seam stays even. A walking foot is the other good choice, especially on a large quilt or a thick sandwich. Her sample in the video is a pot holder with two quilted layers, batting and Insul-Bright, and the machine has to work for it, so she helps the fabric through with her hands rather than pulling on it.
Turning the corners
Corners are the standard mitered fold. Stop a quarter inch short of the corner, either backstitching there or sewing off at a 45 degree angle to the corner point, then fold the binding up so it makes a diagonal, fold it back down level with the next edge, and start sewing again from the top. Yvonne notes that the angled stop is not compulsory. It is simply an easier way to get a square corner if folding a clean bias by eye gives you trouble. If you want to see the fold up close and slowed down, it is shown in detail in our hand binding tutorial.
Somewhere around the second corner, something annoying usually happens.
When the presser foot sticks
With the paper peeled off, the exposed tape grabs the presser foot and the quilt stops feeding smoothly. The fix takes a second. Slide a small piece of paper under the foot on the sticky side, so the foot rides on paper instead of on tape. Keep it well away from the needle, since you are only covering the stickiness, not sewing through it. The quilt goes right back to feeding.
Joining the two ends
Stop sewing well short of where you began. Overlap the two tails and trim the top one so the overlap matches the cut width of your binding. Then open the top strip out flat, right side up, bring the bottom strip up onto it without twisting anything, open that out too, and sew the diagonal. Check it before you trim. Then cut the excess back to a quarter inch.
Do not take that last seam to the iron. There is fusible tape on the strip now and it does not belong on your soleplate. A firm finger press is enough, then fold the binding back in half and finish sewing the last few inches down.
Clipping the corners
Before you turn anything, clip the bulk out of all four corners. There is a lot of fabric stacked in there, and taking some of it away is the difference between a smooth corner and a thick lumpy one. The corners you sewed off at an angle are trickier to clip. They still clip.
Pressing the binding to the back
Turn the quilt over, wrap the binding around to the back, and press it down. This is where the tape earns its keep.
The one thing to watch is coverage. The line of stitching that attached the binding to the front shows on the back, and the folded edge of the binding has to sit past it. Roll the binding over far enough to cover that line, keep it straight as you go, and press. Yvonne leaves the iron down while she adjusts the next section rather than lifting and carrying it, so the tape gets a little extra heat as she works.
Watch straightness, not speed. If a stretch comes out with a dip or a pucker in it, lift that bit, pull it over a fraction more and press it again. It takes a moment now. It is the whole reason the back is going to look even.
Yvonne is direct about one thing here. Some makers say a fusible tape of this kind is enough on its own and you do not need to stitch it down. She disagrees, and stitches it. Fused and pressed is enough to get you to a Fourth of July picnic. It is not enough to finish the quilt.
Which brings us to the part that makes the whole method worth doing.
Stitching it down from the front
Ordinarily, machine binding forces a choice. Sew from the back and you cannot see where the stitching lands on the front. Sew from the front and you cannot tell whether you are catching the binding on the back. Because the binding is fused in place, that choice disappears: if you stay in the ditch on the front, you know you are catching the back.
Swap to an open toe foot so you can see the seam clearly, and stitch in the ditch all the way around, pivoting at the corners. With matching thread the stitching is close to invisible on the front, because it is sitting in the seam, and on the back it runs straight and even along the binding.
What this binding is and is not
Turn it over when you are done. The back is even the whole way around, everything caught, nothing wandering. It is not an heirloom binding and Yvonne would not claim otherwise. What it is, is quick, strong, and good looking enough for exactly the quilts it is meant for: the ones you make because you love them, use until they wear out, and then make again.
Which side are you on: hand binding in front of the television, or machine binding and on to the next quilt? Tell us in the comments.
And if you want the version that does win ribbons, the hand binding tutorial with mitered corners is next. Before you start either one, put the right thread on the machine. Everything in this tutorial hangs on it matching your binding, and our thread collection is where to find it.
