Make This: Scrappy Binding Tutorial

Have you ever wondered what to do with the scrap pieces of binding that are leftover once your quilt is bound?  Sometimes, they can be quite long, and it seems like such a waste to throw a perfectly ironed bit of binding away.  You can always use small pieces for small projects, like our free baby bib pattern, or our Essential Diaper Clutch.  

But what about a bigger project?  We love to save all of our scraps and use them on quilts, pillows, and table runners.  We use these cute girl spools to store our binding while we’re saving up.

This one was made by our Creative Team member, Cami.  Isn’t she cute?

Once you have enough binding scraps saved, pull them out and audition them around whatever you are binding.  This will give you an idea of how much you will need and what colors will work.  Make sure to have at least 12″ of extra binding.  Today, we are binding a test block that we made for an upcoming quilt pattern, using some of our scrap fabrics and a floral fabric in the middle designed by Audrey.  We then used it for machine quilting practice at a class we took from Christa Watson of Christa Quilts.

Once you’ve picked your binding, trim all the ends at a 45 degree angle in the same direction.

Take them over to your sewing machine and join the binding just how you would a regular binding.

Sew a 1/4″ seam with the 45 degree cut edges laying perpendicular to each other.

Iron all the seams with the seam to one side.  This is how it should look.

Now, to machine bind, you will start sewing the binding on the back of the quilt, instead of the front.  Align raw edges of the binding with the raw edges of the quilt.