Tutorial Tuesday: Quilt Binding (works for your mug rugs too)

© J C Excell, 2011

I know those of you who joined the mug rug swap are still in the planning stages, but I can't share the mug rug tutorial with you today as Buzz hasn't converted the template to a pdf yet. So I'm sharing a binding tutorial instead.

I recently got The Quilter's Bible by Linda Clements from amazon.co.uk and she's got some instructions for binding that I hadn't seen before. So mine is similar, but her method for joining up those last ends looked like it might require more skill than I currently have.
This is for a mug rug, but this binding tutorial will work for a quilt of any size.

First you need to determine how long it needs to be - measure one long and one short side and multiply by 2 (35" side + 45" length x 2 = 160"). Then you need to add on extra for joining it all together at the end. If you're doing a mug rug, 10" is enough. If you're binding a big quilt, aim for 20". Small quilt needs 12"-16" extra.
I always use 2 1/2" wide binding strips. You can do whatever you're comfortable with.

You will probably need to join your strips together to make them one continuous strip. Here's how:

Place one strip face up on your ironing board as shown. Fold and press the other strip as shown in the picture, then unfold and carefully line it up with the edges of your first strip (the orange one):

Stitch down that line, then trim the seam allowance down to 1/4". Press seams OPEN to prevent bulk:

 

Continue joining strips in this way until you have all the length you need. Then iron them lengthwise, with wrong sides together, as shown below:

Now, with the unfinished edges pointed out, pin one side to the rug/quilt. Leave a tail of about 1/2 the length of your calculated 'extra' binding - so for this mug rug I left a tail of about 5 inches before I started stitching. 

Mark a line 1/4" from the bottom edge (as shown below in blue chalk). Sew with a 1/4" seam allowance to that line and sew a couple of locking/backstitches.

Take the quilt off the sewing machine completely.

Flip your long tail up like shown below and finger press:

Now fold it back down and pin carefully in place (it will have a little 'ear' on the left):

Now line up and pin the binding to the rug/quilt the same as you did before, and sew from the top all the way down 1/4" above the next edge.

Repeat for all the edges.

When you get toward the end, leave another tail overlapping your first one. Trim the tails so they overlap by the width of the binding plus 1/4". (So on a 2 1/2" binding, overlap by 2 3/4" )

Now with right sides together, overlap by 1/8" and draw a line like shown below:

Sew down that line (it's all a bit fiddly but keep trying and you'll get there - I scrunch up the quilt to get it to behave). Trim the seam allowance to 1/4" and press open:

Now you can stitch that down:

Now fold it over to the back, pin and slipstitch in place for perfect corners, front and back:

Done! You're awesome!

(You might be wondering why a lazy girl like me doesn't just use the sewing machine to attach the binding to the back too. That's because I did that on the first quilt I ever made and it looked AWFUL. So until I have Wonder Woman sewing skills, hand sewing will have to do.)

© J C Excell, 2011
You are welcome to use any SewHappyGeek tutorial for personal use. You are not given permission to use my pictures or my words without giving me credit and linking back to the original. Sometimes my pictures have my family in them and they are never intended for public use. Also, I work very hard to provide free tutorials for my lovely readers, and anyone copying or selling my tutorials is guilty of copyright infringement.