Binding Techniques

After presenting my tutorial for matched binding at Seattle MQG recently, I came home thinking about the various binding techniques I'd tried over the years, and thought I'd do a little round-up in case it's helpful for you all. 

• Straight Matched Binding [click link for my tutorial]

Matchy-Matchy

• Angled Matched Binding [clink link for my tutorial]

Red Cross Meets Very Peri

• Binding Flange by Julie Herman @jaybirdquilts 

The Mango Block

• Two Toned Binding by Ellyn Zinsmeister @ellynz 

• Single Fold Binding by Yvonne Fuchs @quiltingjetgirl

From One to Nine

• Quilt Facing Tutorial by Audrey Esarey @cottonandbourbon

l'uscita

• Wide Binding Tutorial by Audrey Esarey @cottonandbourbon

Matrix

• No-Tails Binding by Linda Hungerford @flourishingpalms

Sands of Time

• Striped Binding [click link for my tutorial]

Swoon

Of course, there are oodles of other options. Check out my Quilt Binding + Tutorials pin board for some of them! And let me know if you have a favorite that I haven't mentioned, ok?

Victoria + That Binding

Goodness, time has just done quite a job of getting away from me lately! It's been over two weeks since I had the pleasure of presenting a trunk show to MQG Victoria, which was alot of fun! What a friendly bunch they are.

It was good to see what other guilds do - they happened to be celebrating their birthday as a guild with a fabric challenge, and it was a delight to see so much of their beautiful work! I also met a few long-time friends on social media, plus of course some new ones!

After the meeting, there was opportunity to gather round all of the (30!) quilts I'd brought, look up close, and of course, ask questions and chat about what they'd seen and heard. There was one prevalent inquiry and that was about the quilts that had faced bindings.

So I wanted to share the tutorials I've used for this technique - all come highly recommended, yet each has unique differences that may make one your favorite over another. And of course, that's ok!

Faced Binding by Elizabeth/OPQuilt
This was the first tutorial I tried, and it worked lovely, and pretty perfect with mitered corners and all.

Facing Finish by Terry/Terry Aske Art Quilt Studio
Terry's tutorial is an alternative to the mitered method, and really focuses on reducing bulk and controlling the 'squareness' of the corners.

Knife Edge Binding by Anita/Bloomin' Workshop
A bit of a simplified version of the previous technique, here's the one I personally use most often. Call it my go-to.

Non-Binding Binding by Victoria/The Silly BooDilly
I haven't actually used this one, but it's unique in that it's single-fold, but it might suit your project just fine, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

So hope that's helpful! A faced binding is a really lovely way to finish off certain quilts. The one thing about it, is that is needs to be finished by hand on the back side. So a bit of a different method, but not really any more difficult or time consuming than 'regular' binding. Consider trying it sometime so at least you have it in your quilty 'toolkit' when you need it!

Love It or Hate It?

 

Several months ago, Sew Mama Sew asked me to round up some quilting tutorials, and so far, I've shared 12 Fundamental Quilting Skills and 8 Modern Ways to Back a Quilt. Today you'll find 15 Best Binding Tutorials, a pretty exhaustive collection. {Just click here.} There's a few of my own {striped binding and straight and angled matched binding} plus a dozen more, several of which I'd never seen before. You know I like to put a twist on my quilts' bindings, but even so, I was surprised and impressed at some of the techniques I found, and I'm pretty sure you'll find something new to try, or a tutorial to make your favorite method even better.

Binding a quilt is one of those things you swoon over or dread. {I'm a swooner!} For some reason, I am just intrigued by how folks finish their quilts. So much so, I've taken 2 online surveys this year here on A Quilter's Table, just to feed my curiosity. The first was about your binding decisions {survey and results}, where the second was more about your actual technique {survey and results}. Interesting reading for sure - and a good resource when you're considering your binding options. And this new round up will be a terrific added resource.

Thanks to those who gave permission for their techniques to be shared, and remember, I also recently posted Emma/joworimakes' tutorial for hand blanket-stitched binding - another to add to your own personal round up.

So have you tried some of the tutorials I mention in my Sew Mama Sew post? If so, or if you have another we should all know about, please share in the comments. How you finish your quilt can really add to the overall effect. Isn't it great to have so many options?

Hand Blanket-Stitched Binding

If you've been around A Quilter's Table for very long at all, you probably know I'm often playing around with quilt bindings - scrappy, matched, angled, and striped - I've done them all. So in general, binding treatments catch my eye. As Emma/joworimakes's did on Instagram a couple of weeks ago.

We chatted about her hand blanket-stitched binding, and in the end, I thought you might like to see and hear about it too. So here, in Emma's words . . .

This is a very easy and fun binding finishing technique that I came up with when wanting a little something extra on the front of a mini quilt. It is nothing new – I have seen machined blanket stitch binding tutorials online, but I am a big fan of hand stitched pieces and thought the blanket stitch finish by hand would just add that something special that I wanted. It is great for adding extra interest on mini quilts, and so far that is all I have used it on – I don’t have the patience for hand binding on large quilts! If you are confident in your hand stitching however, there is no reason why you shouldn’t use it on larger quilts.  I have finished a few mini quilts using this technique now, with plans for many more - I think it makes for a charming finish!

To complete your binding using blanket stitch, simply sew by machine on the back of the quilt using your favourite technique, turn over to the front and secure (I love clover wonder clips for this step!) and use your blanket stitch to sew the binding down as if you are doing hand applique. My favourite blanket stitch tutorial is one from Adrianne at “On the Windy Side” which you can find here: http://www.onthewindyside.co.nz/2013/11/how-to-do-hand-blanket-stitched-applique.html

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, or just to show off your work if you use this binding finish! You can find me on IG with the handle “joworimakes” or on flickr as “jowori”. Enjoy!

***ETA: Emma uses 2 strands of DMC floss or Aurifil 12wt thread for her hand-stitched binding.***

(mini is made from a slightly upscaled block from the Thimbleblossoms pattern “Salt Water”)

Isn't Emma's technique fun? If you've done any hand-finishing of binding on the front of a quilt, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks for sharing, Emma!

How You Bind :: The Nitty Gritty Results

Thanks to all of you who took the time to take the binding survey last week. If you don't have time to chat, feel free to click right on over to the results, where you can see the pie charts (also shown below) and all the added comments. I do have just a few comments of my own after you glance at the stats here.

Surprised where you fit in? Surprised at anything?? I was kind of surprised at how many folks secure their binding before they hand-stitch it down. I have never ever done that, so really had no idea it was such a thing. hmm

There were just a few comments that require some further action. First, someone asked, "Any chance you could research or do a tutorial on binding a quilt with the facing technique?" I know immediately what to suggest here: OPQuilt's tutorial, which I've used several times myself with great success.

Now here's where I need your help. Rather than do another survey right away, can you respond to one or more of the questions below in the comments? Hopefully those who asked will see this post and our responses.

1. How about a question about how gals like to do the miters, top on top or side on top? 
2. I'm curious, do people press their binding before sewing? After I machine sew it on, I press it away from the quilt top and then hand-wrap it around to the back to sew it on. I wonder what others do. 
3. I'd like to see you do a survey about HOW to sew binding to a quilt. I bet most quilters don't know that there's another way to attach binding than with folded mitered corners.

My answers: #1: I miter my corners going clockwise on the front, with the side I'm sewing into 'on top.' I'm pretty sure I'm traveling counter-clockwise when I'm stitching on the back. If there's a 'right' and 'wrong' way here, I'm clueless. Please enlighten me. #2: I didn't know till recently that this was a thing either, but now I do do it. #3: I know how to do a faced binding as mentioned above. Please do tell if you're thinking about a different method than that.

So there you go! I'd love to hear what you think about all this in the comments!

How You Bind :: The Nitty Gritty

The binding survey has been closed. Results will be posted on October 20, 2014.

Remember a while back when I did a binding survey? It was all about different binding choices - fabric, size, techniques. One thing that the survey revealed was that about half of you really enjoy binding by hand. Which is exactly what daughter dear and I were doing on a road trip last weekend. I guess I had forgotten that we, gasp, don't do it the same way!

She (top photo) holds the binding away from her, and uses no thimble or clips or pins. I, on the other hand, hold the binding right next to me, wear a leather thimble, though also with no clips or pins. All this led to an impromptu survey on Instagram, and boy did I get some responses. You can read them if you like - just look for me at aquilterstable.

Which brings me to say - I didn't want to leave you all out! So here's a quick survey for you too. And since I was making it all official-looking, I went ahead and asked a few more questions. For any of you that left comments on the Ig post, I've already entered the data from your comments. Feel free to let it go at that or answer whatever you didn't the first time. I'll leave this open for a few days, and then share the results. If nothing else, I think we'll find there's many ways to get to the same result!

How You Bind :: The Results

Well that was fun! The How You Bind survey had a larger participation than I anticipated and it dawned on me a little late in the game that it was alot easier to 'read' the results with the multiple choice questions. Ie. with over 200 responses, it took a bit of perusing to get through the 'essay' questions. So for those, I'll summarize for you, then there is a link to all the responses for each of those questions, just in case you're inclined to check those out. So here's how we bind!

Q2  Do you have a 'go-to' binding? Dots, stripes, solids or ?

"No" was the most common response, or "depends on the project". Closely following was "stripes", though dots, stripes, and scrappy were mentioned plenty. Click for complete results

Q3  How wide do you cut your binding? 

Responses ranged from 1 1/4" - 3", with the top 3 responses being:

2" - 11

2.25" - 71

2.5" - 119

Q6. What is your favorite way to finish the binding? Ie. how do you join the ends together? If you have a favorite tutorial, please share it here.

Ok, the responses to this questions were overwhelming - there are SO many tutorials and techniques that are standbys for you. I did glean that a majority of you join binding strips at an angle. I'll definitely be reading through these results again and looking up some of the links you mention. Click for complete results

Q9. Have you ever made scrappy binding, striped binding, matched binding or any other special binding technique? Do tell!    

Scrappy was the overwhelming choice here. Click for complete results

Q10. Any last comments about binding? 

This section was fun to read, some of which was a repeat of the other questions. And of course there was "I hate binding!" right alongside "I love making it!". Click for complete results

Well thank you for participating in the survey! I certainly hope you enjoyed it, and maybe even found a tip to try or a variation to consider just for the fun of it. I think things were summed up really well with the statement, "I find that the right binding often is just the pizzazz needed to transform a 'pretty' quilt into a 'gorgeous' quilt!" I couldn't agree more.

How You Bind

As I was making binding last night for my current project, I was thinking how differently we all do things. Which made me curious what you do! Take a moment and tell me about how you bind, and I'll share the results in a future post!

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Linking up with Random Thursday.