Binding Tutorial Part 3

Mitered corners and joining the ends of binding in a seamless fashion - do these topics make you leery? No worries! I totally understand. I used to have to pull out my trusty reference sheets every time I reached these steps. I have them all laid out here with photos to make it as simple as pie. 

If you missed Part 1 and Part 2 of the binding tutorial, check them out! You might find a new tidbit or discover you want to try and make continuous bias binding. 

 Mitered Corners

When you're attaching binding, you want your corners to look professional and neatly square. When you flip the binding to the back and are sewing the backside down, you want the corners to fold together "just so." Here are my steps:

I like to place a pin 1/4" away from the corner so that I know where to stop sewing. Too often I get close to the edge, and have to rip out the stitches. I've learned that the pin helps keep my mind from wandering!

Stop sewing at the pin, and backstitch at a diagonal off the edge of the quilt. 

Remove your quilt from under your machine. Now take your binding that's free and lift it 90 degrees up. Turn it 90 degrees back down but aligned with the top of the quilt. 

Now start your sewing at the top edge of the quilt and 1/4" away from the side edge. Continue sewing until you reach the next corner! That seemed easy!

Meeting the Ends of Binding

The last step of attaching the binding to the front of the quilt is meeting the ends in a seamless manner. Remember from Part 1 how we ironed the corner of the binding down and cut a diagonal on the starting end? Now we get to see how the ends fit together.

Sew your binding until you are about an inch or so from the beginning end of the binding. 

Lay out the free end of the binding on top of the sewn binding. Cut the free end of the binding at a diagonal about an inch or so down from the beginning end. 

Tuck the free end into the flap of the sewn beginning end of the binding. We left the beginning end of it unsewn remember? That's so we can tuck this end inside of it.

Continue sewing until you sew the flap closed on the beginning end of the binding. Where the binding meets is now joined at a diagonal seam just like all of the other continuous bias binding seams. It blends in perfectly and is unnoticeable! 

Making and attaching binding is complete for now. The last and final step and flipping the binding over the raw edges and sewing it down to the back. You can hand stitch this part in a variety of ways. One of my favorite ways is to use a big stitch as shown in the photo below. To learn more about using a big stitch, read this previous blog post of mine.