In the past I have avoided making bias binding
because I just didn’t want to. My dear friend Violet Craft is here though to show us today
how to make the quickest, the fastest, the no scrappiest method for continual bias binding.
This is a quick tip you don’t want to miss. Rob: Ok Man Sewing friends, meet my dear friend
Violet Craft. She is an incredible fabric designer and does fantastic paper pieced patterns.
Violet is here to show us quickly how to do continual bias binding. Violet, take it away.
Violet: Ok. Rob: Alright.
Violet: So what we have here is a perfect square. It doesn’t matter what size this
square is. All that matters is that you have a square. The thing I can tell you about the
size of your square though is, the more fabric you have, the longer piece of bias binding
that you will end up with--continuous. We are going to take this one square with our
long ruler. And just cut it diagonally. Rob: And you’re lining that up corner to
corner? Violet: Corner to corner.
Rob: Perfect. Violet: And we’re going to slice it right
across into our two wedges. So now we’re going to take this and slide it down so that
our straight edges line up. Rob: Oh ok.
Violet: Line up. And we’re going to flip this over. And I am leaving my little quarter
inch tab on each side. Rob: Ok
Violet: So that we’ll get a nice smooth seam line there. And now Rob, if you want
to take this. Rob: Got it I’m standing in front of the
machine on purpose. Violet: In front of the machine. And we have
the quarter inch Rob: Seam guide.
Violet: Seam guide. Rob: Yes, so we can go fast and accurate.
And this is a straight of the grain stitch. So we’re not on the bias yet.
Violet: We’re not. Rob: We’re not getting any real flex or
anything. So I can hit the gas. Go a little bit faster. Reline that up and make sure it’s
beautiful for the end. And then, are we going to need to press this.
Violet: We are. Rob: Ok, hit that button on there for us real
quick. It will just take one second to warm up.
Violet: Ok Rob: Do that if you will. I wasn’t thinking
about that as we were getting started. Violet: I had it warmed up before so it should
still be at least a little toasty. Rob: Good. I wasn’t paying attention. I
get excited about these demonstrations. I forget about the technical stuff. Ok so we
are creating a parallelogram at one point was a square. Size is not determined or all
that important I guess. Beautiful. Violet: And this is what we’ve got. And
so I like to have 2 ½ inch strips for my bias binding because I like to do a double
fold. And 2 ½ is just what works for me. So I’m going to take my ruler and mark at
2 ½ inches. When you use any sort of pen or a chalk or a whatever you’d like to use
because we will be cutting on this line so it’s, it’s not going to show up.
Rob: Got it. Violet: In anything that we use.
Rob: So you’re just marking for later on. These will be for cutting lines.
Violet: Yes. Rob: Got it. This works really cool. She showed
me a second ago. I love this trick. Violet: So I’m just sliding the ruler up
every 2 ½ inches. And I’m checking my 2 ½ inch line. One, two and a half, here all
the way up. Now this extra section at the end is excess and we won’t need that.
Rob: Because it’s not 2 ½ inches? Violet: Because it’s not 2 ½ inches
Rob: So it’s not going to work. Violet: So we’ll go ahead.
Rob: Ok, that’s a headband in the making. Violet: And cut this away.
Rob: Got it. Violet: Ok now that we’ve got our lines
drawn Rob: Ok
Violet: We’re going to flip this over the long way and it’s going to look a little
awkward but you want this line to match up with this one here. We’re going to sew those
together. Rob: Right sides together.
Violet: Right sides together. Now we’re going to offset where we line it up. Instead
of moving this all the way over here we’re it fits a little awkwardly. We’re going
to move it down so that our 2 ½ inch line matches up right with that edge.
Rob: Any 2 ½ inch line or the first one Violet: The first 2 ½ inch line. So that
2 ½ inches of a tab hangs off on each side. Rob: Ok.
Violet: And I am going to go ahead and put a couple pins in here so we need to be careful.
Not to run over those. Rob: Make sure I don’t hit those as I go
over the top of them. Ok, I’ll try my best. You still have our stitch length dialed in,
got it. Violet: There you go.
Rob: Perfect. And I’m going to start on the top end here. Do I need to set a seam
allowance or a backstitch or anything like that?
Violet: I would backstitch, yes. Rob: Ok so I’m going to take a couple of
backstitch, yank that pin out. And this is still straight of grain, right are we still
straight of grain? Violet: No we are on the bias now.
Rob: On the bias on that one. Violet: We are sewing our bias strips together.
Rob: That’s right. There you go. Violet: And now we just take a really nice
pair of fabric scissors and start cutting. Rob: One layer at a time?
Violet: One layer at a time all the way around our ring.
Rob: So this is going to make a tube that is so cool. That upwraps it.
Violet: It’s like magic. Ok so what you have left is a little over two yards of continuous
bias binding. Rob: That’s just the coolest thing.
Violet: Ya, and if you, the reason that I like to have bias binding is for curves or
say you’re working on something round. In this case I was working on this little mini
tree skirt for my daughter’s Christmas tree. And we have this round edge. And although
I normally bind my quilts in just a flat of grain binding.
Rob: Right. Violet: For this project you definitely need
the bias to be able to turn that tight curve. Or if you’re doing a scalloped edge, and
a lot of times in apparel you use a bias. On the inside of this shirt as a matter of
fact. Rob: That’s a fantastic quick tip. Violet,
thank you so much for showing us. Violet: You bet.
Rob: And that was even easier than I thought it was going to be. Hey Violet is joining
me in a couple of other videos too so make sure you check those out also. And we will
see you next time right here at Man Sewing.
