Hi, it's Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt
Company. We have a much requested tutorial for you
today. A lot of people have asked for me to show
them how to sew a binding on using the machine. I love to bind so I don't do this very often
but I certainly can show you how. What you're going to do is you're going to
take your regular binding strips and we're just going to go through this from the beginning
so it'll be a whole binding tutorial again. So, I like to cut my binding and this is personal
preference but I like to cut mine in 2 1/2" and then before I do anything I iron them
right in half. So, I just fold the edges together with the
wrong sides together on this and I iron this all the way. I do this for two reasons, one it helps it
lay down real nice, and two when I'm laying the strips together I sew them together so
that they have a forty-five degree angle on them, and it helps me to see where that fold
line is crossing on there. So, let's go ahead and iron the last strip. There we go a little bit more. I do have a tutorial on how to make this ironing
pad. It's on You Tube under Missouri Star Quilt
Company, Ironing Board. A lot of people ask about my ironing pad. It's actually made with a piece of flooring
and a towel but you can see how to do that in that other tutorial. So, now what we're going to do is we're going
to take these strips over to the sewing machine and I have my sewing machine right here. How I put these together so they lay at a
forty-five is, I open up this fold right here, and I lay this one directly on the cross like
this. So, it makes a little cross. I don't bother to cut off my selvage because
I leave it sticking out of the edge here and off the edge here. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to lay
my presser foot right there, and I'm going to sew from here to here. So I'm gonna make a straight, I'm just going
to eyeball it and sew from this edge to this edge. You can butt them together if you want. The reason I like to do the bias binding is
that it actually makes less fabric together, so, you don't have a big hunk of fabric that
puffs out your binding. So, let's go ahead and sew some of these together. I also really like to chain piece these, and
I'll show you how I do that. I just sew straight across, and then I grab
the end of this and bring it around, and I lay it right down here in front of my needle,
and then I lay the next strip across it, again putting right sides together, and we're just
going to go ahead and cinch that down. We'll do that a few more times so you can
see that. So again, now I'm going to grab my end, open
it up, lay it down flat like that, grab the next strip, and open it up, and put it right
here. So, it kind of makes an X, and I'm going to
slide that up under that needle, and then just sew straight across, and let's get one
more. I've got to do the last one here and then
we'll be good to go. I think this is only going to take about four
strips but I always cut one more just in case. There's nothing worse than getting to the
end of your binding and being short like this much so we like to make sure we have lots! Alright, so now all my bindings are sewn together,
and what I'll do is, you can see how they're all chain pieced here. What I'm going to do is, I'm just going to
cut along here with my scissor and clip that thread, and do this on all of them. So, I'm going to cut right along, I leave
about 1/4". It doesn't have to be particularly straight
because you sewed straight. So, again I'm just going to cut along here,
clip that, and cut along here. There you go. And when you open it, see, you have that bias
binding that works so well and just lays nice and flat. OK, the big difference between a binding like
this, and the other binding, is how you start it. This is a little tumbler quilt I made using
our Tumbler Template here at the Missouri Star. This is Girly Girl fabric, and this is part
of that line. you can see it right here and I wanted to
bring it in in that binding. So, the only difference between putting your
binding on with a machine or by hand is where you sew it. So, when you put your binding on by the machine
you're going to sew it onto the back, you're going to bring that around to the front, because
you want to be able to put a nice stitch on there. If you do it the opposite way you don't know
where that stitch is going to land. So, what we're going to do is we're going
to turn our quilt over, and if you're good at finishing a binding that is so great! Or you have a way you do it. I like to use the binding tool because the
angles just are hard for me. So, again, I have to make 12" between with
The Binding Tool, and then I start by putting on my binding here, and I just leave about
a 10" tail. This is what you do if you're going to use
The Binding Tool. If you don't need The Binding Tool, more power
to you! Holy Smoke. So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to put this on on the back and
we're just going to go around and sew it. So, we'll head on over to the sewing machine. Alright, so we're just sewing this down now. I'm actually not pulling this through, I am
just trying to hold it up here. It's having a hard time holding up here, so,
let me just scoot that over a bit. Put this up here and I want to show you how
we get around a corner. It's exactly the same as when you bind it
from the other side. We're going to do the same thing. Alright, we're going to stop a little bit
more than a 1/4" maybe a 1/2" from the end. We're going to pull this out. We're going to put our thumb under here and
pull this binding so that it meets up with the corner right there. And then we're going to start sewing down
that other side. That's how you get those nice mitered corners
and you want a pretty mitered corner on the front as well as on the back. OK let's do this next corner again. We sew to about a 1/2" and I lift my presser
foot and I'm going to pull this around the direction I'm sewing. I'm going to lift my needle and slide it out,
and then I'm just going to put my thumb under here and tuck that back so that it lines up
straight with the top, and then I'm going to sew down this other side. Those corners are just easy as pie. Alright, now I'm going to finish sewing these
up and we'll meet you back at the cutting table! OK, so we've got this all sewn on. Normally, it would be sewn up here remember
but when you're going to do it by machine, you want to sew it onto the back. It's all sewn on, and then what we're going
to do is we're going to bring this around to the front. This gives us greater control because we'll
be able to see exactly where that stitch is going. So, I'm just going to start here in the middle
of a side and just bring it on over to the sewing machine. This is actually a fun time to choose to do
some fun things. On most of your machines you have some fun
stitches that we don't get a chance to use and this is a good place to use those. I'm actually going to use one of those zig-zags
where it (sound effects) you know how it has all the little stitches as goes along and
zig-zags. I think that's kind of a fun one to do on
a border. Gives a kind of lacy look. Another thing you could do, this is a really
fun place to add trim, because you have total control over where it's going. If I took this little ric-rac I could lay
it along here like this, and then as I bring that binding over it would give it a little
scallop edge to the inside of the quilt edge and it would just look really cute. You could use a tiny ric-rac on there. All kinds of things you can do with the front
binding. But let's head on over to that sewing machine
and take a look at how I sew this down on the top. When you're sewing this down Some people use
these little clips they're like the little hair clips that bend to hold this binding
down. I actually just turn mine as I go. So, let's just stick it under here. And I actually think that's one of the benefits
of using a 2 1/2" binding strip. It's because it gives you enough room to fold
that over. I'm going to meet the edge of my fold for
my binding strip right along the stitch line. See this stitch line where I stitched it on
the back gives me a guide on the front. So, that's what I'm going to do, I'm just
going to sew along. You can see the stitch that I'm doing is like
a little scallop, kind of, and I'm going to stop every 6" or so and make sure that this
folded down, meeting up with the edge of my stitch, and hold it down, and I'm just going
to go that little bit of a way. It might be faster to pin it down but I'm
kind of a perfectionist where my binding is concerned. Alright, so here we go, a little more. I want to show you what happens when we get
to the corner, and there's a lot of fun little stitches you can use on these, on the machines
now. They just have so much to offer. So, you can see that little stitch it just
looks cute. Alrighty now, I'm getting close to the corner,
and I'm going to show you what I do here at the corner. I'm making sure that my, I'm making sure that
right here this is, I'm going to hold this down making sure it's laying, covering that
stitch line, and that it goes flat off the edge, just like this. So, we're going to go ahead and sew down there
and then right here, I'm going to leave my needle in and I'm going to pivot this. I'm going to lift up this needle and then
I'm going to fold this over. We want the mitered corner on the front as
well as the back. OK so you can see the design coming out of
here and again I want to show you one more corner. So, were just about there let me get right
there we're going to turn this. We want to turn it the direction you're going,
and then we're going to pull this out of here. I'm going to go ahead and clip these, and
then we're just going to go ahead and lay this over. We want to make sure, hold this down, we want
to make sure it makes a nice miter and look at that pretty miter right there, beautiful! A beautiful miter right there! Then we slide that under our presser foot
hoping it doesn't move. When you have that much fabric you, kind of,
have to give it a little help through there. And it emerges, fairly triumphant! OK I just want to show you one more way to
do a corner. As you come to the edge you can press this
outside edge down, and fold the top edge over as well. Either way will work while trying to form
a miter. So, there we have that right there, and it's
just going to lay down a little miter, and then you can sew straight over that, and pivot,
and come down this other side. It'll leave a nice edge either way. So, here we are with our finished quilt. It's really just a quick, fun way to finish
a binding. It's easy, it's quick, it is a lot faster
than hand binding but really, you know, bind how you like. You can see this little edge one thing that
you want to make sure of when you do these edges is that it's something that will come
out and grab that edge. You know you can do a little stitch right
along the edge, or you can do a flower stitch. Just something that will come over the top
of this, so, you make sure you catch that and hold that down. This is a quick tutorial on how to bind with
a sewing machine and we hope you've enjoyed this from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.
