Finishing a quilt binding

quilt tips,

There are a lot of tips and tricks out there for just about every sewing and quilting situation, so here’s my entry in the “how-to-finish-a-quilt-binding” category. This tutorial assumes you know how to create the binding and are ready to sew it onto the quilt top.

This works with any size binding, since you use a scrap of your binding as a measurement. Leave a 10-12″ tail before you start sewing on the binding; stop sewing the binding to the quilt about 10-12″ before the end. This 10-12″ gap will leave you with enough room to join the binding and finish sewing it to the quilt.

Step 1: Cut a small piece of your binding and place it on the quilt about halfway between the 10-12″ gap mentioned above.

cut a scrap of binding to use for measuring
cut a scrap of binding to use for measuring
place the scrap of binding across the quilt edge
place the scrap of binding across the quilt edge

Step 2: lay the tail from the beginning of the binding across the scrap and place a pin (as a marker) in the binding on the left-hand side of the scrap as shown below:

lay the tail over the scrap binding and place a pin in the binding
lay the beginning tail over the scrap binding and place a pin in the binding

Step 3: lay the tail from the end of the binding across the scrap and place a pin (as a marker) in the binding on the right-hand side of the scrap as shown below:

lay the end tail over the scrap binding and place a pin in the binding
lay the end tail over the scrap binding and place a pin in the binding

Step 4: (this is the only tricky part, but you’ll get it once you see it!) With right sides together, lay the left-hand side of the binding over the right-hand side of the binding, laying the marker pins perpendicular to each other.

lay the end of the binding over the start of the binding, right sides together with pins at a 90-degree angle
lay the end of the binding over the start of the binding, right sides together with pins at a 90-degree angle

Step 5:  Pin and stitch the two strips together across the diagonal.

join strips diagonally
join strips diagonally
stitch strips together on the diagonal
stitch strips together on the diagonal

Step 6: Trim the seam to 1/4″

trim seam to 1/4"
trim seam to 1/4″

Step 7: Press seam, then pin binding and stitch to edge of quilt. Finished!

pin joined binding to edge of quilt
pin joined binding to edge of quilt
stitch binding to quilt--finished!
stitch binding to quilt–finished!

And that’s really all there is to it. This method works for any size binding, because you use a piece of the binding to measure the distance needed. This is only one method, and there are many ways to finish a quilt. But I’ve been using this method for years and it always turns out perfectly.