Welcome to SewVeryEasy, my name is Laura. And bias bindings are a lot stronger than a regular cut binding. However, they seem to be a little bit confusing. The sewing is the same; it's the cutting [that is confusing]. I'm going to show you a really easy way to cut it. No special rulers, no folding, no math—just cutting. Start with a half a yard of fabric. Make sure your sides are straight and it's pressed. Open it up. Cut off both of the selvages. When the selvages are cut off we have one big rectangle. You are going to be able to do this system with any size fabric. You can even do this in fat quarters. I don't like to go much more than a half a yard because we need to be cutting on a diagonal, so I need to have a ruler that's going to get very close from end to end. If the fabric is too wide, I'm constantly moving my ruler. I find a half a yard works great. It's open and it's flat. Now we need to find a 45° angle. There's many ways you can get a 45° angle. If you have a ruler with a 45°, that works great. If you have some triangle rulers, some are 45°. However, be careful on the triangular ruler. This is a triangle, but it's not a 45° angle. Here's one with a 45°; another one with a 45°. If you have no markings on a ruler and you're not sure of a 45° angle, take a square piece of paper and fold it in half. That fold line is a 45° angle. So the first thing we need to do is cut off an angle. If you are right-handed you're going to want to cut off the left side. If you're left‑handed you're going to want to cut off the right side. You can start with any 45° triangle or your piece of paper or your 45° line. Let's start with the paper. This is my fold. I'm going to be able to take those two edges and place them right there in the corner. I will be able to cut along that line. If you're left-handed you're going to do it on that side and you're going to cut off that triangular piece. If you have a triangular ruler, take the shorter edges and match them up so the long edge is on the corner. Right-handed; left-handed. If you have a 45° ruler, that 45° line is going to go along one of the edges. If I'm going to cut on this side, I'll slide that over until I get a measurement. If I'm going to do it on this side, I'm going to take the ruler and put it on the other angle and slide it over so I can cut off the triangle. Here is this 45° line right along the edge of the fabric. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 is going to be your cutting line. I'm going to start with a triangular ruler just because it's easier for me and it doesn't really matter the size. You don't want to do a very small one; anywhere between 6"–8" works great. If you don't have the ruler, the paper will work fine. I'm going to take the two short edges, put it right along those cut edges, and I'm going to cut off this triangle. If I'm going to do it left-handed, I'm going to cut off that triangle. This piece is not used for the binding, however, I recommend keeping it just in case you need a little piece. From here, it's a decision on how wide you want your binding. Binding ranges between 2", 2¼", even 2½". I'm not going to use any of the markings on the ruler other than that 2" mark, and I'm going to be cutting strips at 2" all the way along. So my first cut I'm going to match up that 2" mark, and I'm going to cut. Without moving the fabric or lifting up that piece that I just cut, I'm going to be able to move the ruler to the 4" mark and cut the 4". I'm going to go to the 6" and I'll have to move my ruler as I go along, and cut. Because this ruler is an 8½", I'm going to be able to get one more strip at the 8" mark. From here I don't have enough over on this angle and enough on that corner. Since I'm going to be cutting from this direction, I'm going to move the ruler down until it comes off of the fabric, start cutting until I get about the halfway mark— keep the rotary cutter right in the fabric; don't move that—and just slide that ruler up, making sure this edge is straight. And make sure the ruler is off the fabric. Now I'm going to be able to continue cutting. When I take these apart, I now have long strips at a 45° angle. I can continue cutting those 2" marks. I'm going to follow that last cut mark at my 2" mark. I have it lined up, I'm going to cut to about the halfway mark, slide my ruler up, making sure it's off the fabric, and continue cutting it. I'm going to be able to continue cutting all the way. I find that half yard at 18" works really nice, but if you want to go bigger, by all means. Just make sure your fabric is flat. As we keep cutting we're going to come to the end. Just keep cutting them until you get to a small triangle in the corner, and this is going to be discarded, just like the first one that we started with. I'll keep it, but I'm only going to use it if I need to. The center portions of these strips are all going to have the same cut mark on them, so you're going to be able to take one piece and you will see how they're going to match up when you get to sew them, so it doesn't matter in what direction you go; they will match up. The corners have a different angle so we're going to correct those angles. Take all your center pieces that have that correct angle that you need and just stack them together. You can see you have some nice long points to work with. As I go along, my angles are still the same. This angle is different because that was the selvage that we cut off. The bottoms are still good; it was this side. We want to take those angles and change them into this angle. On one side you're going to need to adjust the top. The other side where the other selvage is, you're going to need to correct the bottom. Work on one side at a time. This angle is correct. This is the one that needs to be adjusting. I'm going to take those three or four, whatever you have, and stack them up. The easiest way to correct this corner is use one piece that you already have. I can see my angle right here, and I can take any ruler that I want and I'm going to follow that mark and cut it off. This cut is at a 45° angle, but I'm using my top piece as a template. Now I know all of these edges are the same as these. And stack them up. Now I have the other side. The bottom was fine; it's the top that needs correcting, so I'll match up all of the pieces at this top. I'm going to use the "template" again right from my own strip. Now you can use the 45° angle, but to me it's just as easy follow that line. And that's it. So I have my two end pieces and those little corners that I had to cut off to make all of the angles the same size. Now I have a pile of strips that are on a 45° angle, and each end is going to match up. I need to sew that seam there. Just by taking that one piece and matching up those edges you'll be able to stitch along this line. What you need is to leave a quarter-inch ear hanging out on each side. As you're stitching, your needle is going to start right in that intersection and it's going to stitch down and come off this intersection. The more you move the fabric down, the bigger seam [allowance] you're going to have. It still will work as long as you start in that intersection and stitch straight down, coming off of that intersection. So you don't have to worry about having the exact quarter inch; you just need to start and stop right through those corners. There's a quarter-inch seam and there's a good half-inch seam; however, we've gone from point to point. When you open them up, the edges are going to be matching. I like to take the seams in the back, press them open and flat. Just continue sewing all of the pieces together. This now gives me approximately 324". We can take it to the iron and press all of those seams open and flat. And while I'm at the iron, I'm going to take this and I'm going to iron it so it's folded in half. I'm going to have two dog ears sticking out which is fine because I'm just going to trim them right off. I now have a nice pile of beautiful bias binding. I like to store it by wrapping it, and I'll wrap it along a ruler. Start by just holding that fabric on and I'm not going to pull because I don't want to stretch it. It's very easy just to continue to flip that ruler until all of the binding is on the ruler. Now I'm going to be able to take this and slide it right off, and I have a nice bundle of binding. A fat quarter is going to give you approximately 130" to 140" if you cut it at 2". If you want to make the binding for a queen-size quilt, you can use that half yard plus a fat quarter. For a king size I would just make this twice. I like to pre-make my binding when I'm making the quilt. The reason is I have my fabric there and I have the right thread on the machine, and I will have the binding ready when the quilt is done. If I'm doing scrap quilts I'll make a pile of black binding and just keep it handy so whenever I need it, it's ready to go. This is a very simple way to make your binding. Thank you for joining me today on SewVeryEasy. Feel free to subscribe and, as always, come on back. Let's see what we're sewing next time
in the sewing room. Bye for now!
