Bias Binding Tutorial

[Music] hi it's sharing from a quilting life and today I'm stopping by to share with you how I make my bias binding I love making patchwork pot holders and bags and both of them often require a bias binding because of the curved edges so today I'll walk you through the steps to make your own bias binding without any special kind of tool okay the easiest way to make a bias binding is to begin with a square of fabric now a lot of times if you're making a pattern they will tell you how much yardage you need for your bias binding or they will tell you how big of a square to cut I actually don't like to work with squares that are too big it just makes it too hard for me to get the ruler to cut it but you're going to start out with a square and you're going to make a diagonal cut now if you are working with a larger square I will get two rulers and put them together so that I can get it accurate but generally what I'll do 18 inch I can almost get my 24 and a half inch ruler so I will just start my cut and then I'll kind of slide the ruler to the other end so that I know I'm going diagonal to diagonal and I'm going to cut that in half now what you've done is you've created two triangles and these edges right here have a bias to them they stretch a little bit more than these edges that aren't on the bias if you look a new kind of pull it's much more difficult to stretch the outer edges than it is these inner bias edges now what you're going to do is you're going to sew these two triangles together so that you can create the piece that you need to make your bias by and what you're going to do is you're going to leave one right side up and you're going to flip the other over okay so I went like that and they put this so you're actually putting two edges without bias together and you're going to kind of just make sure that that ends that there's about a quarter of an inch there and a quarter of an inch here and you're going to go so this scene and after you sew the seam you will have the two biased edges opposite like that so let me run over to the machine I'm going to sew it and I'm going to press it open and then I'll come back and show you the next step okay so I'm back from the sewing machine I've sewn the seam and pressed it open just to go back and show you this is this is how I had it so the bias is here and the bias is here I sewed them right sides together I press that seam open and now we're going to get ready to cut our strips now you have to be careful that you're not after doing all this work to make a bias binding that you're not cutting on the straight edge of the fabric and I can tell you I've done that before so and so what you want to make sure that you're doing is that you're cutting on the two on the bias edges so it kind of looks like a parallelogram and what you're going to do is you're going to and sometimes I'll even like stretch it make sure that I feel that bias and so I know that I'm doing the right thing but so now it depends on what size strip you need to make and you can cut whatever width binding you need once you've sewn this together and I've been using I'm making pot holders right now and so I've been using two in an eighth inch binding normally for quilts I do two and a fourth or four mini quilts I do two inches if I'm doing a bag and there's lots of bulk sometimes I might do two and a half inch binding but it's generally two and a quarter inch binding is what I'll do and so I'm just gonna cut those strips and I'm gonna use my long ruler and again I'm just gonna slide the ruler as needed I kind of keep it tight against the edge of my cutting blade okay so there's a strip and I'm going to continue cutting all the way across this piece that I've created and cut my actually just about it two and a quarter I'll just keep cutting two and a quarter then and so you just keep going bias binding is good to have on hand so if you're making a bag or a small project or pot holder you can and I've even taken leftover pieces of bias binding and made scrappy bias binding for pot holders so I know I will use this as I have about eight pot holders ready to go sometimes when you get to the end you have a strip that's too small to use that's fine just throw it away but now what you're going to do is you're going to join these strips that you've cut together and you'll notice that they already each have a seam and that you know is from that first scene that you sewed sometimes the seam is really close to the edge and I'll kind of wait and try to have that be a piece that and sometimes I'll just cut that off but what you're going to do is you're going to sew these together and I just lay them like this so that the diagonal cuts are going the same way and then I flip them right sides together and the same thing you're going to have the little triangles extending about a quarter of an inch on each side and you're going to sew that seam and then you'll just continue on and you'll sew another piece the same way you're just going to sew that together and when you're done this is a piece that I've already sewn you'll just have lots of little seams and don't worry sometimes they go a different direction that doesn't matter you will trim off the little edges so that your binding is flat and then I always fold it in half and press it so it's ready to use but seem seen anyway and you'll notice with this type of binding you it has just a little bit of stretch right there it just has that stretch that you'll need to get it to go around your curved pieces and that's really all there is to it it's a little bit extra work other than cutting straight strips from straight of grain yardage but this just gives you what you need and also just one more thing I have friends who always use bias binding they feel like it's more sturdy on the edges of a quilt and that it is stronger because of the way that the grain is cut and so I do have friends that use bias binding on all of their quilts so it's a good technique to be able to use so I hope you enjoyed this little video tutorial on how to make bias binding it really is a good skill to have you can use it anytime you have to bind a curved edge so that you just have that bias in the binding that gives you that little bit of additional stretch that you need and I will have a video coming soon with how I make my patchwork pot holders and I use the binding for those but as I mentioned curved quilts scalloped borders bags often require it so it's just great to be able to make it on your own if you haven't already please subscribe to the channel and thanks so much for stopping by [Music]

Channel: A Quilting Life

Views: 26,556

Rating: 4.9658604 out of 5

Keywords: Bias Binding, A Quilting Life, Quilt Tutorial, Quilting, Sewing, Sherri McConnell, Moda Fabrics, Binding, Quilt Binding

Id: Kp1yb_oiDA4

Length: 9min 9sec (549 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 12 2020