Do you use bias binding? It’s a must if your quilt has curved edges! I don’t make often quilts with curved edges so I usually stay away from it. I prefer the straight binding, made with strips cut on the grain.
A few days ago I prepared this piece of fabric and in order to achieve the desired effect for my binding, I had to make a bias binding, with fabric strips cut on the bias. I wanted to make this job easy and without wasting fabric so I had to step out of my comfort zone and UNDERSTAND a technique that I messed it up once or twice.
Have you noticed how comfortable it is to come back again and again to those techniques you know well? It is so easy to find reasons why a new technique is boring, not suitable, not worthing your time to learn it!
This technique produces continuous bias binding from one piece of fabric, using only two seams! It’s really useful, I think any quilter should learn it!
From half yard of fabric I made 288’’ bias tape (8 yards), 2½’’ wide, enough for binding a 70’’ square quilt.
If you want to try this technique, here is what you need:
- Half yard of quilt weight fabric (18’’ x 42’’). If you want to use a solid fabric embellished with stitching, like me, checkout out this blog post for instructions.
- Fine permanent marker
NOTE
To test the technique, you can use a smaller piece of fabric, as well (like 10” x 15”, as example).
Remove the selvages of the piece, straighten the long edges, making if a perfect rectangle (90 degree angles, opposite sides parallel and equal).
Place the fabric on a cutting mat, right side up, and bring the top left corner toward the bottom edge, folding the piece as shown.
The left edge of the rectangle must be perfectly aligned with the bottom edge. This makes a perfect 45 degree angle.
Cut along the fold with a rotary cutter.
Move the cut triangle to the right of the rectangle, positioning it as shown below. Pay attention here: the new shape MUST be a parallelogram (the bias edges must be parallel).
Attach the triangle to the large piece. Place the pieces right sides together, aligning the edges and top corners (the right angles). Sew with ¼’’ seam allowance. Press the seam open.
On the wrong side, draw a line at ¼’’ from both long edges of the piece (the straight edges, not the edges cut on bias). Use the permanent marker or any marker that doesn’t bleed.
Then draw lines parallel with one of the the bias edges, evenly spaced at 2½’’ (the green lines below), until you reach the other bias edge.
Do not take as reference the bias edge that is intersected by a seam (the left edge in the above picture), use the other bias edge.
NOTES
1. Make sure the green lines intersect the red lines, the intersection points are important for the next steps.
2. Your binding will be 2½’’ wide; if you need a different width, when drawing the green lines, use your number instead of 2½”.
At the other end, there will be some excess (what’s smaller than 2½’’), trim it off.
In the next steps, you will stitch the two long edges together (edges with the intersection points marked), but with an offset, see the pictures below.
Turn the piece right side up and bring together the long (straight) edges.
See the offset in this picture.
You have to match those intersection points.
Use pins to keep the edges together.
First, match the intersection points.
Then add more pins in between two points to keep everything smooth and flat. If one of the edges is smaller than the other, stretch it so they fit.
By pinning this way, you will create a tube.
To better understand how this offset works, I made the diagrams below.
In the center there are the two edges that you have to join.
In the diagram below, there is no offset, the edges indicated by the green arrows are aligned. This is WRONG!
You have to offset the pieces in one of the ways shown below, either way works.
The first way works better for right-handed people and the second way is best for left-handed people (it makes the final cutting of the continuous bias strip easier-see the next pictures).
IMPORTANT NOTE:
The first points (as well as the last points) you have to match are shown in this picture. As you see, one of them (the top black point) is positioned exactly on the edge, make sure you match these points correctly.
Continue pinning; when it’s done, your piece should look like this: a tube with a tail at each end. If you don’t have two tails (or no tail at all), something went wrong!!
All those marked lines create now a continuous spiral.
Sew on the line marked at ¼’’ from the edges. Use short stitches (1.5 or 2 mm), you will be cutting across this seam and you don’t want it to come apart.
Press the seam open. You have to do that on segments, as the seam is a spiral, too.
Note how the marked lines must be perfectly aligned after sewing (see the lines indicated by the red arrows below). All those lines must be aligned, they should meet at the seam line.
Starting at one tail (it doesn’t matter which one), cut along the lines you drew; use scissors.
Continue cutting along the drawn line, until you get to the end. You will end up with yards and yards of nice, continuous bias strip.
See below the difference produced by the two different ways of offsetting: see how one of the versions is better for right-handed people than the other.
If you can’t remember how to offset the edges for easier final cutting, it’s OK. I am right-handed and I ended up with a piece that it is easier to cut by left-handed persons. This trick will make cutting easier: insert your left arm into the tube.
I really hope you will give this technique a try. I know there are many pictures and instructions, but the technique is really quick and simple, once you understand it.
You can replace the rectangular piece of fabric with a square piece of fabric- the technique remains the same. It all depends on the amount of fabric you have at hand.
If you want to have all these instructions at hand, download this tutorial in pdf format below.
PS. There are formulas to calculate how much binding you will make from a particular fabric piece or how much fabric you need for a specific binding length. Check out this blog post to learn more.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write up this tutorial. I have read & tried others but always seemed to mess it up one way or another. This one is very clear, concise & easy to understand. I’ve been sewing for 49 years but just started quilting 2 yrs ago. So thankful for the internet, I know I’m learning so much more from people like you sharing these tips!
I could never understand this method with a square piece of fabric. I haven’t tried this yet. You have explained it so well with the rectangle piece of fabric. Love the coloured cotton thread through the fabric. Kerryn
Geta, This is the best tutorial I have ever seen for this method of making continuous bias binding. I almost always make bias binding. That’s the way I was taught. The old timers (and I’m becoming one of them very fast now) tell me that the way the threads line on the bias help the wear of the binding when it is on the bias. If a thread breaks in a straight of the grain binding, the binding will wear and eventually the binding will have a hole. If the binding is on the bias, and a thread breaks, the binding will not show the wear for a much, much longer time because of the way the threads run at X not + in the binding. I don’t know if that’s true. I learned this after I was taught to always make my bindings on the bias. My exception to making bias on the binding is when I have a quilt that does not require a bias binding due to its shape and the fabric is a diagonal print and then the binding print would have a vertical instead of a diagonal stripe after putting the fabric on the bias and I actually want a diagonal stripe bias. Thanks for a great tutorial. I tried this method before and was told to mark my 2 1/2″ cutting lines after I sewed the tube. Can you imagine how difficult that was – trying to do that? I gave up. It was impossible. I had no references for trying to make the tube and keep the tube offset in a satisfactory faction and no diagrams to follow. Thank you very much.
I have used this method successfully a few times (to get a diagonal binding with striped fabric), but decided to check out you tutorial anyway. Your descriptions are so clear, precise, and complete, they seem to anticipate any question a beginner might have. You are a gifted teacher. Thank you for sharing you expertise and insights.
Clear instructions, tried this for the first time today. I don’t think I’ll be using this method again. I did not like that the seams end up going both ways once the binding is cut. I didn’t expect that! I like the binding seams to go the same way. For anyone less OCD than I am, it’s a great method.
I agree with all the above comments!! This is the first time I have used this method and looked at many tutorials. This is the only one I understood and could follow. Explanations and diagrams were exceptional. thank you so much. I have never left a response to an article like this.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! Everyone has their own way, but yours is the one I choose. Been looking a long time for this. So thank you!
Wish I’d seen this page before I read about calculating yardage. I know how to make continuous tape from a square, just needed help with calculating How big a square I needed. But I wanted to work with a rectangular piece. After I read about calculating, I just plunged in and cut my 8 x 24 piece of fabric on a loooong diagonal! I made the tape. But with really weird seams. Haha. Now I know how to do for next time.
This is really clear and helpful for the technique, thank you!
I do think there is a math error, though. If you were measuring 2.5″ apart for your diagonal lines, did you really end up with 2.5″ wide bias tape once it was folded in half? Or was it more like 1.75″ wide when cut and 0.875″ when folded?
This is tricky to describe in words without having a picture, but here goes. I consider the width of the bias tape to be measured perpendicular to the line where it’s folded. And when you fold the bias tape, you are not folding at 90 degrees from the second seam you made (the one where you matched the dots and sewed the top to the bottom). You’re actually folding at 45 degrees from there.
Working with a 45-45-90 triangle makes it pretty easy to calculate. If Y is the measurement along that top/bottom seam, then Y^2 = 2X^2, where X is the width measured across the bias tape from one cut edge to the other. Your example of Y = 2.5″ between diagonal lines gives us Y^2 = 6.25. Divide that by 2 to give us X^2 = 3.125, and then take the square root to find 1.77″ for the width of the bias tape.
In the other direction, if I wanted to make the bias tape 2.5″ across, I’d square that to get 6.25, then multiply by 2 to get 12.5. When I take the square root of that, I get 3.54. So my diagonal lines would need to be a hair over 3.5″ apart if I wanted to end up with 2.5″ bias tape, or 1.25″ across once it’s folded in half.
Drop me an email if you’d like me to send the picture that makes all the math so much easier to visualize.
Your instructions for making bias binding is fine. However, if I may point out, the fabric used for the instructions makes the pictures confusing. I have used this method for years and I had to really study the photos to see what was being illustrated.
Please take my comment as construction.