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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