In the past I have avoided making bias binding because I just didn’t want to. My dear friend
Violet Craft is here though to show us today how to make the quickest, the fastest, the
no scrappiest method for continual bias binding. This is a quick tip you don’t want to miss.
Rob: Ok Man Sewing friends, meet my dear friend Violet Craft. She is an incredible fabric
designer and does fantastic paper pieced patterns. Violet is here to show us quickly how to do
continual bias binding. Violet, take it away. Violet: Ok.
Rob: Alright. Violet: So what we have here is a perfect
square. It doesn’t matter what size this square is. All that matters is that you have
a square. The thing I can tell you about the size of your square though is, the more fabric
you have, the longer piece of bias binding that you will end up with--continuous. We
are going to take this one square with our long ruler. And just cut it diagonally.
Rob: And you’re lining that up corner to corner?
Violet: Corner to corner. Rob: Perfect.
Violet: And we’re going to slice it right across into our two wedges. So now we’re
going to take this and slide it down so that our straight edges line up.
Rob: Oh ok. Violet: Line up. And we’re going to flip
this over. And I am leaving my little quarter inch tab on each side.
Rob: Ok Violet: So that we’ll get a nice smooth
seam line there. And now Rob, if you want to take this.
Rob: Got it I’m standing in front of the machine on purpose.
Violet: In front of the machine. And we have the quarter inch
Rob: Seam guide. Violet: Seam guide.
Rob: Yes, so we can go fast and accurate. And this is a straight of the grain stitch.
So we’re not on the bias yet. Violet: We’re not.
Rob: We’re not getting any real flex or anything. So I can hit the gas. Go a little
bit faster. Reline that up and make sure it’s beautiful for the end. And then, are we going
to need to press this. Violet: We are.
Rob: Ok, hit that button on there for us real quick. It will just take one second to warm
up. Violet: Ok
Rob: Do that if you will. I wasn’t thinking about that as we were getting started.
Violet: I had it warmed up before so it should still be at least a little toasty.
Rob: Good. I wasn’t paying attention. I get excited about these demonstrations. I
forget about the technical stuff. Ok so we are creating a parallelogram at one point
was a square. Size is not determined or all that important I guess. Beautiful.
Violet: And this is what we’ve got. And so I like to have 2 ½ inch strips for my
bias binding because I like to do a double fold. And 2 ½ is just what works for me.
So I’m going to take my ruler and mark at 2 ½ inches. When you use any sort of pen
or a chalk or a whatever you’d like to use because we will be cutting on this line so
it’s, it’s not going to show up. Rob: Got it.
Violet: In anything that we use. Rob: So you’re just marking for later on.
These will be for cutting lines. Violet: Yes.
Rob: Got it. This works really cool. She showed me a second ago. I love this trick.
Violet: So I’m just sliding the ruler up every 2 ½ inches. And I’m checking my 2
½ inch line. One, two and a half, here all the way up. Now this extra section at the
end is excess and we won’t need that. Rob: Because it’s not 2 ½ inches?
Violet: Because it’s not 2 ½ inches Rob: So it’s not going to work.
Violet: So we’ll go ahead. Rob: Ok, that’s a headband in the making.
Violet: And cut this away. Rob: Got it.
Violet: Ok now that we’ve got our lines drawn
Rob: Ok Violet: We’re going to flip this over the
long way and it’s going to look a little awkward but you want this line to match up
with this one here. We’re going to sew those together.
Rob: Right sides together. Violet: Right sides together. Now we’re
going to offset where we line it up. Instead of moving this all the way over here we’re
it fits a little awkwardly. We’re going to move it down so that our 2 ½ inch line
matches up right with that edge. Rob: Any 2 ½ inch line or the first one
Violet: The first 2 ½ inch line. So that 2 ½ inches of a tab hangs off on each side.
Rob: Ok. Violet: And I am going to go ahead and put
a couple pins in here so we need to be careful. Not to run over those.
Rob: Make sure I don’t hit those as I go over the top of them. Ok, I’ll try my best.
You still have our stitch length dialed in, got it.
Violet: There you go. Rob: Perfect. And I’m going to start on
the top end here. Do I need to set a seam allowance or a backstitch or anything like
that? Violet: I would backstitch, yes.
Rob: Ok so I’m going to take a couple of backstitch, yank that pin out. And this is
still straight of grain, right are we still straight of grain?
Violet: No we are on the bias now. Rob: On the bias on that one.
Violet: We are sewing our bias strips together. Rob: That’s right. There you go.
Violet: And now we just take a really nice pair of fabric scissors and start cutting.
Rob: One layer at a time? Violet: One layer at a time all the way around
our ring. Rob: So this is going to make a tube that
is so cool. That upwraps it. Violet: It’s like magic. Ok so what you
have left is a little over two yards of continuous bias binding.
Rob: That’s just the coolest thing. Violet: Ya, and if you, the reason that I
like to have bias binding is for curves or say you’re working on something round. In
this case I was working on this little mini tree skirt for my daughter’s Christmas tree.
And we have this round edge. And although I normally bind my quilts in just a flat of
grain binding. Rob: Right.
Violet: For this project you definitely need the bias to be able to turn that tight curve.
Or if you’re doing a scalloped edge, and a lot of times in apparel you use a bias.
On the inside of this shirt as a matter of fact.
Rob: That’s a fantastic quick tip. Violet, thank you so much for showing us.
Violet: You bet. Rob: And that was even easier than I thought
it was going to be. Hey Violet is joining me in a couple of other videos too so make
sure you check those out also. And we will see you next time right here at Man Sewing.