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Thursday, May 10, 2012

About Those Corners/Machine Stitching Binding

I had enough questions regarding the corners of machine stitched binding, that I quickly put together a sample.  In my earlier post, I was doing a reversible binding so there were no mitered corners. Below is a sample of regular binding with mitered corners. I just grabbed one of my samples and did a quick corner.

 My preference is a two and one half inch binding. Here it is folded in half and sewn to the front of the quilt, using a quarter inch seam allowance. I won't go into all of the details in applying bindings here.
 Press
Press the binding away from the edge. 
Turn the quilt over and press from the back...
take time to press the mitered corners.
You'll be glad that you did.
Pressed corner from the front.
Pressed corner from the back. 

 You are now ready to start stitching. I use a walking foot for the whole binding procedure.  Make sure to match the upper thread as closely as possible, to the front of the quilt. I didn't do this, so you could see the thread a little better. Match your bobbin thread to your binding, again I didn't do this purposely for this sample. Start with a very short stitch length and then set to about 3mm.


Remember to use your left finger, in the ditch as you sew, that way you can feel if you are catching the edge of the binding, as in this post. 

 Stitch right to the corner, lift the presser foot and pivot.
 Put the presser foot down and resume sewing.
Front
Back


I hope this helps.


In between doing this, I just took my Oakshott Quilt, out of the dryer.....pictures later.

12 comments:

  1. hahaha - I don't understand how it's possible to 'not' have mitered corners. Is there something wrong with me?
    -bronwen

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  2. great tutorial, thank you very much!
    Kathrin

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  3. I do sometimes have trouble catching the binding when I'm nearing the corner - your pressing front AND back is a great tip - thanks!

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  4. Brilliant, I am going to be trying this on the next quilt I bind which may well also be an Oakshott quilt. Yumalumadingdong

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  5. You might like to try the backwards binding. Sew the binding to the back of the quilt first. Bring it around to the front, miter the corners, and then sew from the front so it looks good. You don't have to worry about missing the back binding because it is already sewn down. I use a machine blanket stitch for the front stitching, which adds a definite line to the edge of the quilt.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Judy, I like that method as well, but find getting nice corners on this method a little easier.

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  6. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this for us, Marianne!

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  7. Thank you for taking time to post this tut! I can't wait to try it!

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  8. Hi, Marianne. Enjoyed your tutorials and loved the "color shot" quilt. Very elegant.
    best, nadia

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  9. Hello Marianne, I just tried your machine binding method and it worked like a charm. I have always done machine binding where you sew it down to the back first and then fold it over to the front and sew it down. Not my favorite method and I didn't do it very often. Your method looks so much better. My favorite is still sewing the binding to the front and then hand stitching it to the back but your method will be great for a lot of projects. Thanks!

    p.s. I haad already cut my binding at 2 3/8" and it still worked great!

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  10. MARVELOUS - I just finished binding a quilt using this technique (I was already a machine binder) -- LOVE the results. Thank you for sharing!

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  11. Absolutely LOVE the quilt! I have been doing my bindings like this for a couple of years now and I dont think I will ever go back to handstitching a binding again.

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Thanks so much for stopping by and taking the time to comment. I try to respond to all of your wonderful comments....if you are not getting any response from me it's because you are set up as a no-reply blogger. In order to receive a response you can change your status in your blogger profile. I'm no longer accepting anonymous comments.

Thanks again for all your wonderful comments
Marianne