Finishing your Quilt - Trim, Quilt and Binding
So you have made a patchwork quilt - well done you! The next bit often makes me scratch my head and reach for one of my many quilting books so here I have some useful hints and tips to get your quilt bound to perfection. Don't panic here is the low down on how to finish your patchwork quilt with help to bind the edges.
FINISHING THE QUILT
Cut a backing fabric to match top - or slightly larger. Press your quilt top and backing fabric Sandwich with wadding between - spray baste and or pin to hold the layers together.
Selecting a longer machine stitch quilt by stitching in the ditch as much or as little as you wish.
You may find a walking foot useful at this stage.
Trim the quilt to straighten all sides. If you need extra space to do this you can book time in the studio get in touch
Prepare your binding
Cut your border fabric into 2.5 inch strips join on the 45 degree angle to reduce bulk where the strips join. See diagram below on how to do this.
You will need a strip which is as long as twice your quilt height and width with an extra 12" to allow for corners and joining.
Press in half wrong side together and machine stitch onto the edge of the quilt lining up the raw edges.
Start approx 1/3 of edge length from a corner and leave a 6 inch tail of binding fabric. Stitch with a 1/4 seam allowance and stop 1/4 from the corner and back tack.
Fold the binding over and back so that when you turn it over the edge you have a good mitred corner - recommence stitching 1/4 from the corner on the next edge. Have a look at my demo below:
Stop stitching your binding on about 8- 12 inches away from where you started to allow space to make the join.
To join the two ends of the binding you need to overlap them. About half way along the unstitched region place a spare piece of unfolded binding as a measure - cut the upper layer of binding to the right of the strip and the lower piece to the right of the strip.
Then fold your quilt RST so that the two ends are free to join RST at 45 degrees - in a similar way to how we joined the binding strips before attaching. Sew corner to corner and trim the excess triangle to 1/4inch seam. Feel free to double check this before sewing and trimming!
Sew the loose binding where you have joined. Then press the binding towards the back of the quilt and clip or glue baste in place before stitching either in the ditch from the front to sew the back in place or by hand.
Your quilt is complete - please label it with your name and date for your reference and just incase it survives through the generations and really becomes an heirloom.
Any questions please do phone, text, email or pop into the studio!