what stitch to use for binding a quilt

Bounden a quilt is the final step in finishing. Before yous bind, you lot demand to somehow "quilt" your quilt. This means to adhere the front end and back, with batting in between. I usually auto quilt (or have someone else exercise it) my quilts these days. At that place are expert tutorials for that here, hither, and here. If you are going to car-quilt yous should use batting like Warm & Natural or Hobb'south Heirloom. I usually use a poly-cotton blend.

If yous are going to hand quilt you need to utilize a lighter batting or your wrists will hate you.

Once your quilting is finished you lot are fix to bind the quilt.
Starting time stride is to trim your excess batting. I personally like to trim correct to the quilt's border. Using a long quilter's ruler and your rotary blade will give you the best results.

To finish this 42″ x 42″ baby quilt you will need 168″ of continuous binding. (In this post I'yard going to show you the easiest manner to reach that first – using straight-cut binding. We'll discuss bias-cut binding in a picayune bit. )

If yous demand more binding fabric for a bigger quilt, find the perimeter measurement (outside measurement in linear inches) for your quilt and divide that number by 42. (42″ existence the width of the material you are cutting from.) That is the number of strips you will need. If the answer is 7.6833 – you lot will need 8 strips. So you need 8 strips at two.v″ wide, and then you lot demand a total of xx″ (just over half a yard.) Does that brand sense?

Fabric requirements for this babe quilt is 10″ (merely over a ¼ of a yard.) If your quilt store is nice, you could inquire if they'll cut yous 10″. If not, ask for ⅜ grand.
Y'all demand to cut 4 2 ½″ strips along the width of the fabric. (To cut strips from the end of a slice of yardage, make certain that yous line up the fold of the fabric along a direct line or edge of the mat. This way when you lot cut your 2 ½″ strips, they will be straight- non five-shaped.)

Trim the selvage ends off the strips, match right sides together.and sew them together end to end to brand one long strip. Use a ¼″ seam assart.

This time you want to press your seams open.Then fold the entire strip in one-half lengthwise and press.

And then take your strip and starting in the middle of one side of the FRONT of the quilt, leaving about 4 inches unpinned, pin your strip to the edge – with raw edges of the binding strip side by side to the raw edge of the quilt. (Pinning the binding earlier hand will make your sewing much faster and keep your quilt edge from getting wavy.)

When you get to a corner, put a pivot in at the corner at a 45 degree bending.

Fold strip up at that same 45 degree bending

and fold back down over again matching the folded edge with the border of the quilt. Continue to pin.

You lot should take a little triangle flap between two 45 degree-angled pins. This is called "mitering your corners." Pretty corking, huh? This is going to be a snap to sew and will look so fancy when y'all're done!
When the strip gets back around to the showtime fold the ends down and then that the strips run across-upward. Press with your iron to brand a pucker at both folds.

Trim both ends to most ¼″.

Bring the quilt dorsum to the motorcar, pin ends and sew together on the pressed crease.

Printing that final seam open, fold in half like the rest of the bounden and pivot raw edges to the raw edge of the quilt. Now you're ready to stitch the binding to the quilt.
Starting in the centre of one of the sides, run up the binding to the quilt using the edge of your presser foot (¼″ seam allowance) as your guide.

I would highly recommend a walking foot at this signal equally information technology will make your edge a little nicer, but if this is your first quilt or you don't programme on making a lot of them, a walking foot can be a pricey investment. Your regular foot volition work well-plenty.
When yous get to the corner sew right up to the outset corner pivot. This should exist near ¼″ away from the border of the quilt. Elevator the foot and needle and plow the quilt. You lot don't need to break the thread. *Of import* At present, flip the little triangle flap so it lies the other direction. (See photo)
Begin sewing the next side at the very border and go on with the ¼″ seam allowance. (I know, some of you are panicking that I left my pins in. I just do that and seem to not break too many needles.)
When you accept finished sewing all iv sides, fold the folded edge of the binding over to the dorsum of the quilt and pivot it downwards, using those same pins. (You could also utilise those metal clips that look like hair clips if you don't like the thought of hauling something around that could potentially impale you.)

Now you can begin to run across what a pretty, crisp edge a double binding makes.

The corners on the back should automatically miter – looking like this.

Now it is mitt sewing time. Delight don't go scared past this. It is so much easier and faster than you call up – just put in a good moving-picture show, do some mindless sewing, and you're done in no time – especially on this little baby quilt. This is another reason I pin (or prune) all at once before I get-go sewing. Makes the work so much faster.

(For this part of the demonstration I used white thread and then you could see what's happening. When I bound the quilt for real, I used brownish thread to hibernate my stitches.)

Tie a knot at one terminate of your thread and pull through the backing fabric, under your folded-down binding, then bring the needle through the very lesser border of the bias strip and tack it downwards on the backing fabric, right underneath where the needle came through. And then slide the needle through the backing textile, backside the binding strip bringing the needle out the bottom edge once again. This creates a bullheaded stitch. Repeat!

Go along the blind stitch catching down the mitered corner likewise.

This is how information technology will expect using matching thread.

Now lets talk about bias binding.
Bias binding is fabricated from ii ½″ strips cut on a 45 caste angle. There are lots of tutorials for cutting bias bounden like here and here.

Technically, bias binding is a more than durable binding because the grain of the fabric is running diagonally in stead of parallel to the edge of the quilt. (Don't worry if it doesn't brand sense, just trust me on this i.) It likewise has more stretch – practiced for scalloped or rounded borders. (But for this reason, a bias bounden does much better with a walking foot.)
It also looks nice with strips and checks.

Bias cutting strips will have edges with a 45 degree angle.

To sew right sides together, pin ends like this, leaving little ¼″ tips hanging off the ends.

Sew with a good erstwhile ¼″ seam assart.

Press seam open.

And fold in one-half, creating the long bounden strip.

Once the bias strip is pieced, use the same method as higher up to run up the binding to the quilt.

And there you go.

Once my binding is completed I love to wash my quilt to give information technology that puckery, antiqued look. (Plus, machine quilting can make your quilt kind of stiff, until it is washed. And what person wants to wrap a baby in a stiff quilt?) I tend to not pre-wash my fabric (and if you are using a charm pack, definitely don't pre-wash that or you lot will go a bunch of shriveled, unraveled squares.) With most higher-stop quilting fabric the quality is good enough that you lot don't need to pre-wash ahead of time. I practise throw in a Shout Colour-catcher sheet when I launder the finished quilt, just in case. (yous can go those in your grocery store laundry alley.)

If you lot are using fabric from the bigger chain stores, yous probably should pre-wash.

And voila! Here is the finished Charm-foursquare baby quilt!

Hopefully binding a quilt was not too painful, and more hopefully it was a lot of fun and you can feel actually proud of yourself!

Delight don't hesitate to get out feedback – specially if you have more than questions or there are parts of this binding a quilt tutorial that need clarification.

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Source: https://www.diaryofaquilter.com/finishing-quilt-tutorial/

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