How to Bind Your Quilt

Published April 5, 2017 · Updated April 4, 2017

I just recently finished the apple table runner, and while completing it thought I might write up a quick tutorial for how we bind all of our quilts. I had my walking foot on the Brother sewing machine already, and I didn’t bother taking it off to put on the binding. It isn’t really needed – I usually use my 1/4″ foot but this had the same 1/4″ markings so I knew it would work fine.

We cut our binding strips 1.5″ wide. There is no hard and fast rule for this – some people like more wiggle room and a wider binding when it is complete. This is what we’ve always used, and find it works well for us and we’re comfortable with it. This table runner took four 1.5″ x WOF (width of fabric) to go around the circumference with just a 5″ strip left over! We do not stitch the ends together at the end as other tutorials suggest – we just overlap the beginning strip area with the ending strip by about an inch.

To get started, I place the strip right side down on top of the right side of the quilted top, fold over the salvage end about an inch and start sewing 1/4″ from the edge. I do backstitch just a few stitches to lock them in. I continue sewing until I am 1/4″ from the corner edge:

which you can see above – the 1/4″ line on the pressor foot is exactly 1/4″ away from the needle and is on the edge of the corner of the fabric. I lift both the needle and the pressor foot and pull the fabric out, away from the needle a bit. Then you fold the binding strip like this:

at a right angle to the strip you were sewing, and it should line up with the edge of the fabric as shown above. Crease that line well with your finger! You then fold the binding back onto itself, following along both the edge of the fabric you just stitched along and the edge of the fabric you will be sewing along:

Then turn the the whole fabric top to begin sewing the next side, and place back under the pressor foot. Start sewing on the new edge, backstitch a few stitches to set it and continue down the side with a 1/4″ seam.

The picture above shows sewing down the next side after turning the corner. Keep going until you have complete all four sides and are back to where you started. I sew right over my beginning point about an inch and then backstitch to set the stitches. Clip the extra binding strip off – save it in your stash!

Now you will turn the strip to the wrong side of the fabric and whip stitch it down. Here is a close up of the corner, showing how nice the miter looks when pinned:

You can also see how the raw edge is just turned under, and then I pin every few inches. I use a whip stitch which barely shows – it really won’t show, especially on this fabric! Here is a shot of the finished edge and how I am in the middle of the whip stitch: