How To Bind a Quilt 100% by Machine - Sew Well with Rob Appell

hey friends I've been hearing a lot of requests for a binding by Machine tutorial so here we go I've got a fresh quilt right off the long arm and I'm going to walk you through all the steps including the mathematics you need to know on how to do quilt binding by a machine are you ready let's get started well well welcome back everybody do so well I am your host Rob Appel from Stitch in Heaven out in Quitman Texas and I am so blessed to see each and every one of you on the other side of the camera and today's video is a real skill building video we've been seeing tons and tons of requests maybe it's because you were just finishing your Christmas quilts not sure we're beginning 2023 with a lot of how-to quilt videos and today is how to bind a quilt by a machine now this quilt is a quilt actually pattern's not even available yet please don't ask that in the comments below but what I would like to know in the comments today is what other kind of quilting skills may I offer for all of you in tutorial format I will be working on creating a new ironing board real soon like I said today is machine quilting we've been excuse me machine binding we've been working on a lot of other things basic patterns so please in the comments today let me know what you would like to learn next as your traveling your own quilting Journey make sure you subscribe and like the videos while you're here it really helps the channel grow now I want to start with the mathematics of how to figure and calculate the amount of binding necessary to go on your quilt okay so once the quilt has come out and we're going to get to trimming this off in a second but let's just think we're going to start by acquiring supplies so not only are we going to maybe need a small ruler some big scissors I'll show you how to use those later a big ruler I like a 60 millimeter rotary cutter for cutting through all the layers of my quilt once it's quilted it just helps with accuracy a little bit I also keep a stiletto handy some small scissors so all of these little Tools Plus the fabric for The Binding is where we're going to start today so now particularly this quilt I just finished once everything is trimmed and been measured is 74 inches by 80 inches so for you to start your calculations what you're gonna do is you're going to add your length plus your width 74 plus the 80 and then you multiply that by 2 because you have four sides so you're calculating the perimeter of the project okay now I'm going to teach you some skills to rounding up so you have plenty of fabric and I'm hoping I'm correct because I literally have one thread extra today so remember length plus width times 2 gives you your perimeter of the project now once you have that number divide that number by 40 40 inches because that's the standard workable space in your fabric after you've done your mitered Corners which I'm also going to show you in today's video not only mitering the corners on the project but also monitoring the union of The Binding to have the best seam possible in that binding okay so you're dividing by 40 inches and that's going to tell you how many strips of binding you need so when I was done I came up with like 7.7 strips but we're cutting strips of our width of our fabric so we always round up to the next whole number so again length plus width times 2 divided by 40 and then round up so I need eight strips I prefer to make my binding strips at two and a half inches so I simply multiply that eight by two and a half and I came out with 20 inches and you can see here I have literally just barely enough so I did I took the time to press out my Fabrics really nice I've already cut a clean Edge and I'm going to start now by making my strips of binding two and a half inches wide and I'm only going to cut basically two layers at a time because I want to make sure that all of my cutting is super accurate today sometimes if you cut with too many layers you'll get these little wobbles and that could be a negative situation with just enough fabric to spare okay so I basically have my 20 inches I'm going to go ahead and cut down eight strips at two and a half all the way through so now that I have successfully barely gotten eight strips at two and a half inches wide next thing we're going to go ahead and do is we're going to miter our unions if you haven't done this before it's real easy it's going to be harder for you to see at home because I'm using a solid or the black batik because all of this quilt is made out of batik from Island batik so at any rate my first strip is going to lay straight we're just going to call this right sides up if you're using solids and you can't tell often I'll just keep my fold as my right side so I just make that sure I have something real easy to spot over and over again now with batiks it wouldn't matter because they're batiks but nonetheless it's good practice to get into so right sides together and the second unit is going to layer the second strip is going to lay right here perpendicular with the outside edges matching now folks let's stop here for a second we have just barely enough length and all of our yardage of our fabric I could have made nine strips and then I wouldn't be worried about it and at that point I would have cut off the selvages but in this situation I'm teaching you how to get away with just the very least so what we're going to do is the Selvage is still on the batik batik selvages are wonderful to use in the project if you need plus we're going to sew they're going to all get left over in the quarter inch seam allowance but nonetheless I just wanted you to understand I'm utilizing the selvages so that I'm not trimming any excess off the fabric now I'm going to sew from what I'm calling this upper top Corner down to the bottom corner on a diagonal I'm going to do this visually and it will probably be slightly sloppy but you certainly could do this with a ruler a chalk line a laser guide anything I just kind of come down here and find where my bottom point is I'm looking at that as I begin sewing straight okay so we're going to go ahead and cut that thread and lifting the foot on the first one I always check to make sure it's going to work and when I say it's going to work I mean it's going to lay straight all of my strip is going and I'm not even going to bother to trim off the excess yet now what I do is I keep sliding my trim my binding now this is right sides up so I take my next fabric which would be right sides up and I now lay it over here pointing down into my lap line up my outside edges so I'm basically doing what we call chain piecing now okay and I'm just going to drop the presser foot again find that other bottom corner and stitched right to it I have done this with every quilt in the last five or six years so this makes total sense to me now at this point but if you want to check each Union you can what I like to start to do now is I've just now folded right my binding strip in half here's my fold that shows me that I'm now right sides up remember I had that fold up earlier when working with solids or something that reads like a solid like a batik next fabric is going to go right back as the other ones have and I'm going to go ahead and do a 45 or bias joining across here and as you can see I did I just chain pieced all of my strips there and now I'm going to use the thread cutter on my machine or my little block thread cutter to cut apart the chain piecing like yay and then I just start basically on one end and I'm doing two things at once I'm going to inspect to make sure that everything is in the right direction so right now I'm making sure my seams are on one side of the project and I'm also going to come back as I go through and I'm just going to eyeball trim of course you should use your ruler for safety but basically making what would have been a quarter inch seam allowance there you can see the blue thread that I actually am using today so you can see what I'm looking at there okay so now as I go through I'm just making sure making sure see that seam was on the appropriate side so again quickly trim foreign okay and so we're inspecting and trimming off the excess and the next step is we'll go to the ironing board and press this right sides out once all the binding is trimmed and ready to be pressed what I really like to do is have a big ironing surface but you wouldn't be able to see The Binding very well today so I've got my wonderful wool pressing mat so you can see the black so it doesn't get lost on the black matte but I really do I find one of the starting ends and I throw all the rest over onto the floor because gravity is our friend in this situation also now what I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure I can see this seam right I can see all of the bulk I don't care what's going on down over there on the floor now what I'm going to do is I'm making sure that I'm pressing my binding so that it's right sides out wrong sides together so I'm getting rid of all of those raw seams so I'm just matching up the edges got a bit of steam in my iron and I'm just going to go through and just press or slide Glide little sections at a time again I like a bigger board so I could continue on but you can't see what's happening down here so that won't do us any good in the instructional video today right so the other thing I'll take and do now is I kind of loose fold I don't want this binding all over the place I really want to be able to control it as I'm stitching it on to the back of the quilt on the first go about so I kind of loose fold it I've also been known to take an old spool an empty spool of thread and wrap this around the spool of thread because it keeps it tidy and you can keep it on your sewing machine that way that's not available to everybody so I thought I would just show is most generic assembly as possible here and as I get into the seam I'm just allowing one side to press one way one side to press the other in there and then again I'm just going to go ahead and wind up The Binding as I go here but let's bounce ahead and go ahead and trim the last Edge on our quilt like I said normally you would have trimmed the entire project first so you can pull real accurate measurements for your length plus your width times two but in this situation I wanted you to see one of my tricks for accuracy ish in quilt making so I've left one of these edges to still be trimmed off I do like I said use a pretty big rotary cutter like the 60 mil and the biggest ruler I have available to me as well now originally I had to start somewhere so I chose some Patchwork that gave me an opportunity to cut a real nice Edge using this line here right to begin with so I am actually now looking for eight inches from this seam to my outside edge it'll leave just a little bit of batting showing but I can wrap that as I come around with the binding okay and then so I also just knew on my perimeter down or using my points I was able to use those to calculate as well so let me show you what I'm trying to teach you here first thing is get your quilt organized and tidy the area you're working in you want nice and flat the rest of this over here isn't going to matter but this area needs to be incredibly flat easy to handle easy to manipulate and then there's a couple of things I'm going to do I'm going to start because I have the weight of the quilt towards me by first coming up here and just getting an eyeball on the top of my ruler to make sure that things are running somewhat straight then I'm finding my seam allowance running right through here and I'm going to shift so that my black line that's my eight inch Mark and I'm tracking it all the way through all the seams of the patchwork sometimes I might shift or encourage the quilt just slightly to make sure it looks really crisp in comparison to the outside edge and now I'm just going to go ahead and make a slice okay I've cut down through and again you can see some of this batting showing through but I'm going to pull that binding just far enough if I was concerned I could come back in and adjust that cut to a seven and three quarters cut but then I'm really risking losing a lot of this tip in The Binding which we don't want to do if possible okay so again I'm just going to now Slide the quilt a little bit at a time using some of the cut Edge to help remain accurate on the ruler so not using the full ruler for each cut back in I'm checking my seam allowance as it runs through making sure everything looks as it should encouraging the quilt anywhere I need to and again we're just going to go ahead and trim this excess take your time with this you don't need to be in a rush this Edge will also be our sewing line Edge so do make sure you cut it clean just like you would if you were doing any of your Patchwork again outside edge matching my seam allowance this creates a very um symmetrical feel between the background and the edge that's the track there checking for square now at the bottom as I get here almost perfect so I feel great closer than any other quilt I've probably ever made here we go cutting it down put this in your bin of scraps for your dog bed friends and things and we are ready to start to get that binding starting with the back side of the project so let me tidy this up and I'll be right back so with all four edges of the quilt trimmed down for accuracy and all of The Binding strips made stitched together pressed to the right sides out and rolled for tidiness we are ready to really get started there's a couple of different things I want you to consider and maybe it's easier if I just kind of point out like the quilt on the back wall a lot of times I kind of start at the bottom corner of my Quilt Project or bottom center because there's going to be a seam it probably won't show up but it might and so let's find a place where it's going to be hidden that's for our starting and for our starting we're also going to go to the back side of the quilt project so you're going to see now three new steps we're going to stitch on to the back I'm going to teach you how to prepare for your mitered Corners then I will show you how to join The Binding as you're coming back around to finish the loop of the quilt or the lap of the quilt and then I will teach you how to do the top and the other half of the binary the mitered corner so we've got a lot to still learn stick with me here folks right now we are on the back side of the quilt project and I'm going to pull off 8 to 10 inches of binding and I'm going to leave that loose this will be where we tie back into later and now as I approach the presser foot I have my raw edges over here on my binding going towards the raw edges of the quilt itself I'm leaving an 8 to 10 inch tail sliding this under and we are literally just going to do a nice easy quarter inch now with a two and a half inch binding you could cheat it over a little bit if you wanted but that means your binding is going to be narrower on the other side for this project you saw I have a lot of batting I need to cover so I'm going to go with just a quarter inch yet not try to pull too much to the other side let's see how this goes together folks so here we go I've got needle down also engaged because I'll be doing a lot of starting and stopping as I'm stitching and just going ahead and I'm going to sew this on watching the raw edges of The Binding at my quarter inch Mark with the raw edges of the quilt lots of layers here so take it nice and slow let the feed dogs do the work for you another thing that I'm constantly doing throughout this process is I'm adjusting the weight of the quilt on the table I don't want any drag down here in my lap I want everything especially because I'm standing the weight of the table is is carrying the quilt and I'm just adjusting so I have 8 or 10 or 12 inches of working space down here that seems to have no real tension on it from Gravity right now okay let's get back to this stitching as we approach a corner so we can prepare for our first mitering okay so as we approach the corner here I'm going to start to slow down and I really want to stop with my needle at a quarter inch back from the edge of the quilt so right here I'm going to stop and I'm going to encourage you to backstitch lock it down and then cut your threads now this is easiest to do at the machine I'll do another one so that you can see it see it under this top camera but right now let me just try to do it at the machine because this is really where you'll be doing it also this technique for the miter corner is all about the fold so the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to fold up so up from the edge I'm about to sew onto and at this point I just kind of naturally rotate everything then I bring down the binding to match along this outside raw Edge I'm about to approach and in doing so I have squared this top fold and this outside fold to the other fold that was created so everything lines up one two and three as square but there's actually a diagonal fold right in there then slide that project right back under where you think your quarter inch is and go ahead and start sewing in to the next side and then from here on it's just going to be business as usual as you Stitch all the way along those raw edges of the binding and the quilt top for quilt back I should say and I'll also point out how nice it is to be able to manage The Binding strip just right here on the table a little bit at a time make sure you have no drag on your quilt no weight on your quilt that's causing it to stretch or distort with the binding and just keep on working get all four of those Corners done and I will show you then how to join the edges of your binding on a miter as well folks we are almost to the next step where we join The Binding seams I want to stitch right to that edge because I don't want to deal with any of that in my next step okay so now that I'm past that I'm going to go ahead and lock in my stitches by doing a back stitch cutting my threads and removing the quilt project okay this is where we're going to use those big scissors believe it or not and again I want plenty of space in my work area as I'm getting ready to do all of this I want to be able to see my quilts real nice and flat and I've also folks now taking the time because I have almost one entire extra strip right because by using 40 inches as our divisible that really makes us have the extra so that accounts for the corners so I guess if I was really feeling like a show-off I would have taken this flat Edge and I would have joined it into that miter because I can but I don't want to try to do that here because that's really really tricky so let's do it the easy way I like I said stitch past it now I'm pulling out a little bit of the stitching from earlier so that I can have roughly a six to eight inch Gap here between the two edges The Wider this opening is the easier it will be to manipulate our Fabrics but it will also they'll further this distance is make it less accurate the way I'm going to teach you so let's not get carried away six to eight inches is plenty in there okay and so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring this binding over and let me drop in a ruler so we can really see what we're doing okay so right now I'm just going to use this 6 as my cut Mark and I am I'm cutting it with scissors I'm cutting it straight there we go okay now what I need to do is I want to bring this other binding pass the cut the same distance that The Binding is wide so my binding is two and a half inches wide so I'm going to go past this six two inches five four two and a half I should have said to three and a half here okay and I'm going to use the scissors and again this is why I'm using my Scissors because I can lay the scissor along the ruler get myself a nice straight accurate cut from that point I probably should teach us all to use a couple of straight pins we are going to now miter this corner or this Union too and again if you're feeling a little taut and here you can now pull out a few more stitches if you need okay and what we're going to do is we need to make sure we stay right sides together so right now I'm going to open this one up and I'm going to lay it flat that's right sides there's my fold now this one right sides I'm going to twist and at this point we have to start to squish the quilt up so the first thing I'm now looking for is my outside edges to line up and I'm going to secure that with a straight pin right now the next Edge I'm looking to line up are the top edges so sometimes you'll get a wrinkle because of those folds in here so take the time to really gently flatten that out of course I'm over explaining this and overdoing it so you'll learn and put a pin through the fabric try not to put it in your finger because I just did and it hurts now we're going to do the same stitching folks we're going to sew from this top Corner down to the bottom corner not into the pins we're going to remove them as we get there so this is where I really wish I was an octopus I wish I had eight arms and I could manipulate all of this fabric gently but I can't I start to stress I start to sweat it drives me nuts but I technically just need to find the top Corner we've prepared here it comes rotate the quilt so I can sew what was that diagonal line earlier and you can see this is why I say the greater the distance between the stop points the easier it is to manipulate okay here we go I'm going to lower the presser foot I'm going to get a couple of stitches in here one two three that holds it now I can go back in and I can tidy up all of my edges getting all of my ripples away okay and now I'm going to start sewing towards that bottom corner just like we did removing my PIN right through the edge and folks you'll notice I don't backstitch this very often because I'm not always sure I'm getting it right and if you backstitch and you get it wrong then you've got more work to do as well so at any rate let's pull this other pin that we didn't have to stitch through now once I come off the machine I just kind of pull it and wiggle it and make sure that I've gotten everything correct before I cut out the excess and or before I lock in any more stitches because if you don't get it right you're going to have to undo it and restitch it to make sure that it's correct now take your scissors because you have all this fabric around and just gently trim this back real careful of your hands and all of your other fabric around you you don't want to cut into anything you don't want to right now it's also not a bad idea just to take a moment and come over to your pressing station if you can and just press this because that'll set that top Edge real nice that we'll be using in a few minutes for our top stitching okay so that's been manipulated but we still need to finish the stitching to it at the back of the project so you've created the general Union between the two binding Tails now let's come back up here where we had locked in that stitching lower that presser foot I like to start about an inch behind it and now I'm just going to go ahead and finish out attaching The Binding to the back of the quilt project coming right in now here we'll go ahead and backstitch to lock that all in and we can cut threads lifting the presser foot okay so now the binding is all the way around so when we start to pull this to the front of our quilt this is the finished Edge this is the crisp nicely pressed Edge so what I want to do for this project because there are sections where I have some extra batting really hanging out how there it is perfect stop moving the project around so you can see it see all of this batting here that was left because of the size of the quilt and the way I wanted the points to show up so now we're going to be able to bring this binding around and just cover it but what I want my binding to look like is equal all the way along the edge so I don't just want to be pulling the binding fat where I need to cover up so I'm choosing the fattest spot in the quilt we're going to make that the spot that we're just going to stick to and in order to do that I like to get a nice flat run on my quilt and I'm going to make sure I'm not adding any twist to The Binding at all bringing it over and I'm lying it flat now there's a couple of different techniques I like to do a straight Stitch a top Stitch right along the edge so I'm going to set my needle right where it goes some folks might want to do a decorative Stitch or a zigzag they're also concerned with what is the back going to look like so right now I'm using black thread on the back which is going to be pretty similar to the variegated thread I used on the back of the quilt project you can see it kind of shows up it was the threat I had in the machine you should also really consider using the thread that you've already quilted all of the back bobbin quilt work with so that it just looks like it's all part of the quilting the goal is to keep our Stitch is equidistant from the back of the fold as well on the binding this is not necessarily quilt judge approved so this is getting her done this is finish is better than perfect this is going to last and hold up but I am not an award-winning quilt maker I'm a video making quilt maker okay folks now I promised I'd use blue thread so you can see what's going on so as I lower this presser foot right now I am literally going to just try to keep that needle ever so close to the edge looking behind my foot I really like what I'm seeing so now I'm going to use my best eyeball or I could put an edge guide right here to make sure that this binding all stays equidistant you can use your fingers to find where the fold is on the back so you can really feel like things are being consistent and just don't go so slow that you excuse me don't go so fast that you lose your targeting on the top you really want this to look somewhat accurate as you're doing your top stitching here we're coming into where the mitered seam is any of the mitered seams so it gets a little thick so just let your feed dogs do the work and then I'll show you how to finish out one of these corners as I am about four to five inches away from the corner I start to prepare for manipulation I have folded over so that my binding lines up nice we're going to do the same sort of folding technique I'm reaching now down along the new Edge six or eight inches and making sure this folds without a twist now from here a couple of different ways whichever you find easiest but I want to tuck flat and you notice I'm using a stiletto or I could use a seam ripper or the edge of a scissor and then I want to bring over this tip from the first Edge creating that really nice miter I do hope you can see that and then I'm going to hold this right here with my stiletto until my needle Parks right about there so I'm coming in I'm coming in I'm coming in now the needle has replaced the Stiletto this machine has an automatic pressure foot lift so not sure if you're picking up on this that's one of the reasons I love it needle down on binding foot lift up so that I without any other manipulations keeping my hand on the project now I can rotate around lower the presser foot again and just keep on stitching and I've come out of that corner there right here real nicely okay now you're gonna keep your focus on the outside edge staying equidistant you're going to keep that stitching right there looking at the toe of your foot keeping all of that real accurate if possible and you're gonna just keep on keeping on until you get to the next corner and I'll show you that same Corner trick one more time as we get up there okay so as we're heading into this last Corner as a reminder what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this bottom binding The Binding I'm about to get to and I'm going to fold it up into the project and then I'm going to use my fingers creating that crease and a stiletto or something that I can protect my hand with here to now go ahead and let that mitered corner prep go right into the needle and then once I can see that I've pierced it right where those Fabrics cross I'm going to rotate and sometimes the back end of your presser foot might get caught so just make sure everything gets going nice at this moment and then I'm actually in the very very home stretch where we started sewing on The Binding is just about uh you know 20 inches down the road here in my lap so let's just keep ripping through this watching the Edge making sure everything looks nice and you'll see how the binding stitching just comes right back to our start point okay so you can start to see it approaching in the camera now here it is and what I'm going to do is I'm going to stitch to it I'm gonna hit it couple three four threads over it I'm gonna backstitch one two three and that's it folks I don't want to show up too much stitching and over stitching to show where my start and stop was I can cut my thread we can lift the presser foot and I'll come back in and trim that but look there it is The Binding is completely around all of this quilt as a reminder this quilt is called Cosmic Charlie I just put the binding on it so I'm still going to draft the pattern so if you're watching this probably March 2023 and on there should be a link in the description for this pattern as well but up until that point I'm still in progress of working on it so I did want to share with all of you a really fun easy and accurate way to put on your quilt binding by Machine it will take you a lot less time than by hand but it won't be as quick as I made it look today because I had to cut out all the sections where I was sewing all the way around I did use the blue thread so you can see the top stitching as we go and here on the back you can see hopefully some of the black perimeter thread that was the bobbin showing up and you just want to hopefully keep it at a nice distance from that folded back of the binding I did point out that this is not necessarily quilt judge approved however I did have a really fun interview with a certified quilt judge Brandi maslowski the quilter on fire and I believe she was telling me that if you are going to miter your Corners this way the judges want to see your nostrils heading in opposite directions so with that piece of information I think she meant the nostrils on your binding which means one's up and one's down I don't know I'm going to leave you hanging there but as a reminder make sure you're subscribed make sure you comment and like this video it helps us grow I would like to know what other kinds of new quilting technique uh um project block uh what can I teach you what can what can we learn together here at so well um doing these fun tutorials and I again just really appreciate seeing you all out there and I will be back real soon with another great tutorial for you until then stay well everybody [Music] thank you so much for watching all the way to the end of the video it really helps support our Channel if you haven't subscribed do so now hit the little button to be notified every time we go live or do a new video for all of you and here's one from the past I think you'll really enjoy

Channel: Stitchin' Heaven

Views: 77,673

Keywords: Stitchin Heaven, Rob Appell, Making it Fun, Missouri star Quilt co, Man sewing, Quilt Travel, Quilting adventures, Deb Luttrell, quilt binding, how to bind a quilt, machine binding a quilt, machine sewing a binding

Id: dloXXflQ0oo

Length: 37min 43sec (2263 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 08 2023