Binding! And a Few Binding Tips...

 

I got THREE quilts back from my quilter friend. And you know what that means.... BINDING!  For my Cheddar Bow Tie quilt, I decided I needed cheddar binding. And because I don't have cheddar yardage, that means a very scrappy binding. I'll talk you through how I do this and maybe you'll pick up a tip or two. (Don't you love the Baptist Fan quilting on this???)

I cut lots of strips from lots of cheddar fabrics. How many strips? A LOT! I will admit that I never measure the quilt circumference OR make 'just enough' binding. I alway cut more than I will think I'll need. Leftover binding gets wound up and put in my drawer for extra bindings. Sometimes I get lucky and find the perfect leftover piece all ready for a quilt.

In the old days I would sew two random strips together, and again, and again. Then I'd sew the twosies together, and again, and again. And so on and so forth until it was all sewn together.

Now I chain sew it all, in one fell swoop. I sew two together. Flip the last on over and sew its other end to a new strip.

I hope you can see in these pictures how it works. I've been doing this for a few years, and can't figure out why I haven't always done this way. Fast and easy. 

Before I knew it, I had a really long chain of binding.

I bought this handy dandy Clover cutter at Houston last Fall and I do love it for cutting apart chain piecing.

Now I was ready to trim off the triangles pieces and press the binding. Onto sewing!

One more little tip-  when sewing on binding, I like to increase my stitch length. I'm now sewing through four layers of fabric plus batting. If your backing is minky or something else thick, increase the stitch length even more! 

Today I also stitched my Happy Bird blocks together, layered them with batting and backing, and quilted in the ditch. So it was ready to bind. Done! It needs more quilting, but I'm not sure what yet. I'm thinking of hand stitching around each bird and tie the rest of each block with little knots of perle cotton. We'll see....

No pictures, but I sewed the binding on my Open Envelopes quilt (with its minky backing) this weekend, too. One more quilt to bind (Casseroles) and then I'll have four quilts which will need the binding hand stitched on the backside. Whew!

Continue to stay safe!