Welcome to Missouri Star Quilt Companyís tips and tricks tutorials. Today weíre going
to show you how to bind. On an earlier tutorial we showed you how to trim and now weíre going
to show you how to bind.
The first thing you do ñ and this is really a preference ñ but I prefer a 2Ω inch strip
to do my binding. So youíll cut enough to go all the way around your quilt and then
youíll seam them together, removing your salvages. So if youíll come with me over
to the iron Iíll show you the next step.
Youíre going to fold this piece of binding right in half and youíre going to iron it
in half. Now for this ironing I am using this Best Press by Mary Allen. Now we were not
really sold on this pressing fabric but it is amazing and we really like it. Itís available
here in the store, too, and we really do like it.
So now weíll just keep pressing this until the entire piece ñ 2Ω inch strip of binding
is completely pressed.
Now here we are pressing. And I like a little steam in my iron. There we go, right down
to the end. There we go! Alright, so now weíre going to attach the binding to the quilt.
You attach the binding to the table runner. Itís pressed in half and weíre going to
turn an edge of it up and weíre going to make the seam on the end of the table runner.
You can see thereís a little fold on here, and weíre going to sew the binding on, and
weíll do that a quarter inch from the edge. Weíll stay really nice. Normally, you would
use a dark thread on this. Iím using white so that youíre able to see it a little better.
So letís scoot along here. Now when you get about a quarter of an inch from the corner
youíre going to stop. So weíre going to slow downÖ Youíre going to put your needle
down, youíre going to turn it, and youíll move the whole binding out. And what youíll
do is put your thumb under the edge of the binding and lay it back like that. This will
give you a perfect mitered corner.
And then youíll start sewing from the fold and youíll go all the way down and keep doing
that on every corner. Iíll get down and show you it again because itís such a good trick.
Here we are at the corner. So weíll sew until we get a quarter of an inch. Turn your quilt.
Lift up your needle and move your quilt away from the needle bar. Then, put your thumb
under there and pull it back to the edge of the fabric and sew right over that fold. And
you have another perfect mitered corner.
Now weíve finished sewing the binding on and this is how it looks form the front. And
from the back, all you have is a little seam. To stitch this binding Iím going to show
you a special binding stitch that makes all of your bindings lay so flat and look so pretty,
but Iím going to use a John James needle. And the reason I use John James ñ I donít
know if Iím a really strong quilter or what, but I tend to break needles a lot, and these
just hold up so well.
The other thing Iím going to show you is this miraculous needle threader. Theyíre
actually $14, which I think is kind of high, but I have spent so much time as I get older
and older ñ I know thereís a hole in that needle, but I can see it less and less! These
things are like little gifts from heaven!
Just stick your needle in the little whole in the top, lay your thread across here and
hold it down on one side. Then you just push this button and voila! Your needle is threaded.
Every single time! I canít tell you how much time Iíve wasted trying to thread a needle
through a hole I canít even see.
Anyway, now letís get on with this stitch, this marvelous stitch Iíve been telling you
about. What youíre going to do next is pull your binding from the front to the back like
this.
Always bind with the same color thread as your binding, not the back, but the binding.
And then your stitches wonít show. So you pull your knot through and you come out. I
hope you can see that right there. The thread is black and the binding is black. Now wherever
your thread comes out youíre going to go straight down with your needle and catch that,
and come up about a quarter of an inch away. And then the only thing that shows is that
tiny little stitch there, which as you go and catch in the fold you wonít even see.
Now remember, wherever you come out of you go straight down and come out about a quarter
of an inch over. That will just make your binding lay so flat. You canít even see those
little stitches Iíve been taking. And hand-sewn binding is so much preferable to a machine
ñ not that I havenít done machine. I have - But I really like the looks of the hand-sewn
binding.
So as you go along you can turn it over and you can see that it just leaves a nice folded
edge that looks perfect.
So that is how you sew a binding. Thank you for joining us at Missouri Star Quilt Companyís
tutorials. I hope you have a wonderful day. Happy quilting!