AMERICAN FLAGS QUILT – WEEK 5 – SQUARING OFF, MAKING & ATTACHING BINDING

Squaring Off Your Quilt

Layout your quilt on your cutting mat so that all the layers (particularly the corners) are sitting nice and flat

Line up your ruler to the edge of your quilt top the best you can and cut off the excess batting and backing

Turn your quilt and cut the excess off all four sides of your quilt

Making your binding

Cut your 2½” strips

Join strips together on the diagonal:

Place a 2½” strip with the right side facing you horizontally, then place another 2½” strip with the wrong side facing you vertically. Make sure there is lots of clearance from selvedge’s. Draw a 45 degree angle line from the top left corner to the bottom right. Pin. Sew along your marked line with a standard foot. Trim the excess fabric to ¼” seam and the little triangles. As pictured below. Press open.

Attach your binding

Fold your binding in half with the wrong sides together, lining up the edges carefully

To attach binding for sewing, start in the middle of a side and leave a tail of approximately 10”

With a pin mark a ¼” from the bottom of the edge you are working

Clip your folded binding to the top of your quilt, with all the edges lined up carefully

Stitch with a ¼” seam from where you have your tail, to your pin that marks a ¼” from the bottom

Ensure you backstitch at the beginning and the end

For the corners, fold the binding over to the right making a right angle, then fold the binding back over to line up with the edge of your quilt, clip in place

Mark a ¼” with a pin to show you where to start sewing

Clip your folded binding to the top of your quilt, with all the edges lined up carefully

With a pin mark a ¼” from the bottom of the edge you are working

Begin sewing from the ¼” mark down to the bottom pin marking a ¼”

Ensure you backstitch at the beginning and the end

Repeat until you have sewn all four sides, leaving about 16” from where you begin

Sew the two tails together

Take the first tail and smooth it out and then place the second tail over the top

Measure and mark a line with a 2½” overlap from where the first tail begins

With scissors cut the binding at the line you made

Take the left hand tail, with the right side facing up and place it vertically

Take the right hand tail, with the right side facing down and place it horizontally

Allow a small overlap no more than 1/8”
With a ruler draw a 45 degree angle line from corner to corner to use as your sewing guide

Pin on each side, making sure you have room to sew

Sew along the line with a standard foot

Open it up to check that the binding is now one continuous piece

Cut off the excess fabric at the join and finger press open

Pin and sew the last piece of binding on, backstitching at the beginning and end

Finish Attaching the binding

Press your binding open, do not press the corners

Trim off some of the excess batting from the corner, not too much because we don’t want to lose the structure of the corner

Fold the corners over to the back, starting with the side that is on top, then folding over the other side, check that the back has formed a mitred join, and adjust as required

Fold your binding over and clip it in place, or pin marking where you will sew

Machine stitch from the front by doing stitch in the ditch OR hand stitch from the back