quilt club with stacey lee

WEEK 5 – YOUR FIRST QUILT – SQUARING OFF AND BINDING YOUR QUILT

Hi Everyone, last week we quilted our quilts and this week we will square off our quilts, make our binding and attach our binding. So this week, we will finish our quilts.

Here’s what I want you to do: Watch my YouTube videos and read the notes, then let’s finish our quilts.

VIDEOS TO WATCH

Week 5 – Part A – Squaring off your quilt
Week 5 – Part B – How to make binding for a quilt
Week 5 – Part C – How to bind your quilt

TO READ

Week 5 – Your First Quilt – Squaring Off and Binding Your Quilt

TOOLS NEEDED

Wonder clips, pins, scissors, sewing machine, pencil or washable marker, ruler, rotary cutter, self healing mat

SUPPLIES NEEDED

½ yard of fabric for binding, quilted quilt, thread

NOTES
 

When making binding if you join the seams end to end, once we have folded the binding over you will need to sew through a lot of layers of fabric which is bulky, that’s why we cut and sew them on the diagonal. 

Joining the binding on the diagonal distributes the seams making them a lot less bulky.

I suggest that for your binding you cut 2 ½” strips – but you can do wider, or thinner.

SQUARING OFF YOUR QUILT

TASK

SQUARING OFF YOUR QUILT

TOOLS NEEDED
Ruler, rotary cutter, self healing mat
SUPPLIES NEEDED

Your quilted quilt

1. 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

TASK

MAKING YOUR BINDING

TOOLS NEEDED
Pins, scissors, sewing machine, pencil or washable marker, ruler, rotary cutter, self healing mat, iron, ironing mat/board
SUPPLIES NEEDED

½ yard of fabric for binding, thread

1. MAKING YOUR BINDING

Cut your ironed fabric into 2½” strips

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

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 see if the edges line up to make one longer piece of fabric

Repeat for all your strips

Trim the excess fabric to ¼” seam and the little triangles

Press open

BINDING YOUR QUILT

TASK

BINDING YOUR QUILT

TOOLS NEEDED
Walking foot, sewing machine
SUPPLIES NEEDED

Binding, squared quilt, thread

1. ATTACH YOUR BINDING TO YOUR QUILT

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

2. 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

3. FINISHING 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

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

YOU’RE FINISHED!


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