Desperately seeking binding and 5 binding tips I’ve learned

It’s great that I got my X blocks quilt back from Töölön Tilkkupaja's longarm quilting! If you thought that the quilt top looked nice, you will love it now that it’s been quilted!

The next thing that a quilted quilt needs is a binding. I always make my own bindings, so my next step started with a search through my sizable stash: I was sure that I would find the right binding fabric easily.

Not so! I ended up auditioning at least a dozen choices. This picture shows two picks that I was pretty sure about:

I thought that the dark grey fabric would be perfect, but it was only “nearly right”. The uppermost, barely visible fabric is a pale purple Kaffe Fassett. Again, almost there but just a little blah. The middle one I picked because it looked weird enough for me to hope that it would surprise me and be great – but it wasn't.

Here you can see a peek of a peach-coloured fabric that I was also hoping to prove surprising:

Instead, it was the worst fit of all the fabrics I auditioned.

I thought I could sacrifice use my lovely Tula Pink hexies yardage if need be:

I did not need to – they didn’t look right either.

I also auditioned another grey and another pattern with turquoise (and purple) in it:

The turquoise-purple pattern did not look good at all. But I was getting desperate and decided that the patterned grey/monochrome was the best choice – until it dawned on me what I wanted for the quilt. It was none of my dozen picks.

Though none of the auditioned fabrics quite made it, the process worked. After looking at all those choices, I got a feeling of what the right choice would look like and knew I would recognise the right one when I saw it.

The unexpected winner was a yellowish-green, busy print which I have not found easy to use in my quilts. I cut it into strips and saw that there wasn’t enough. I had to complement it with another fabric. And with a bit of a third fabric. I’ve just finished sewing the strips together:

I still need to use the iron to finalise the binding strip. And this made me think that I could share some of the practices I have when finishing a quilt with a binding.

5 things I've learned about quilt bindings

A bias binding is more durable

I almost always cut the strips on the bias because a bias binding is more durable. When I’ve sewn the short strips together, I press the seams open, fold the strip in half and press. I get two layers of bias fabric, which makes for a very durable binding.

This way, I can sew the binding’s raw edge to the edge of the quilt, then just turn the folded edge over and stitch. I avoid the issue with ready-made bindings: that after the first sewing line, you must turn the edge once and only then turn the binding over for the final stitching line.

Using bias-cut binding strips brings another benefit: If you use a striped fabric, the stripes will run diagonally on the edge of the quilt, and this can look super fun:

However, when I choose a black-and-white-striped fabric, I always cut the binding strips on the straight of grain because I like the look.

Somehow, straight black and white stripes just look better on the quilt edge!

A roll of binding is easier to store and use

When I’ve made my binding, I roll it around an empty spool of thread. The roll is easier to store than a bundle of strip, and this is important for me because I don’t always sew in the binding as soon as the strip is finished.

The spool of thread comes in handy when sewing in the binding, too. Place the spool of binding on the extra holder of your sewing machine and the binding will flow smoothly when you are attaching it.

Before my IG friend Liz shared this method, I used to be frustrated by an always messy bundle, in which the binding kept catching and getting stuck. Not smooth at all!

Attaching the binding to the back side first makes for a neat finish on the front

On my first quilts, I sewed the binding on the right side of the quilt first, then folded it over and stitched. That’s how the ready-made bindings were sewn in, and it never occurred to me to re-think my process. Even though the second line of stitching wasn't always neat on the right side of the quilt.

I would still be sewing my bindings in that way if I hadn’t seen another quilter’s post. She mentioned that she sews the binding to the wrong side of the quilt first because then she can stitch the second line from the right side of the quilt:

Any possible un-neatness will be on the back of the quilt, where it doesn't matter as much.

It’s possible to join the ends neatly

I used to think that the folded binding had a downside: it was difficult to join its ends neatly. No matter what I tried, the join did not look nice. Here’s an example of one of my least successful efforts:

Then I found a short, helpful video on Youtube: Quilt Binding, the Final Connection – and my binding joins started to be neat. You can no longer tell which seam is the final one.

There must be many other ways to manage that last seam, but I’m sticking with this method.

A scrappy binding is easy to make

Because I only make scrappy quilts, I’ve often chosen to make scrappy bindings, too. Sometimes a binding with colour changes just looks right, sometimes it’s necessary because there isn’t enough of that best-matching fabric.

And if one wants a super-scrappy binding with short runs of each fabric, there is a quick way to make one: Striped Binding by A Quilter's Table - a method that makes it easy to use the leftover pieces of the quilt top for the binding. I created such a binding for my Early to Rise quilt:

In case you are wondering how that turned out, here is a picture of the bound edge of the Early to Rise quilt looked up close:

Such a scrappy binding could be the perfect finish for your scrappy quilt!

A question for you:

How do you choose your binding fabric? Do you know immediately, or does the right choice reveal itself gradually? Leave a comment and tell me about your binding selection process!

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