Tutorial: My favorite strip-facing binding technique

I like to use a strip-facing binding technique because it helps the quilt hang straighter than a traditional binding. I also use this technique when I don’t want the binding to be visible when viewing the front of the quilt.

Once your quilt is quilted, trim it to the final size plus 1/4" all the way around the quilt (just like using a traditional binding). Select your binding fabric. If my quilt has borders, I like to use the same fabric for the binding. If there is more than one color at the edge of my quilt, I try to use a fabric that is similar in color in that area.

For the purposes of this tutorial, I used contrasting colors for the binding strips so it’s easier to see what’s going on.

How to:

Cut two strips 2-1/2” wide by the length of your quilt and two strips 2-1/2” wide by the width of your quilt.

Optional: The 2-1/2” is somewhat random. You could cut them 2” or 3”. Sometimes I’ll cut them wider for larger quilts and narrower for smaller quilts.

Press a 1/4" seam toward the wrong side of the fabric.

Optional: I like to fuse a strip of 1/4" fusible tape on this seam

 

The strips pinned to the front of the quilt

Lay the strips on the front of your quilt, right sides together with the 1/4" seam closer to the middle and pin along the edges.

Optional: The strips on the top (in this case the blue ones) can be a little smaller than the width of the quilt to keep the bulk out of the corners. Also, if you used some fusible adhesive, pull the paper off the part that goes under the other binding strip.

The strips sewn to the front of the quilt and the fusible paper removed

Sew around the quilt 1/4" from the edge. I like to backstitch in the corners to make them stronger. If you used fusible adhesive, remove the rest of the paper backing.

View from the side...the seam is on the edge

Pull the binding strip around to the back so the seam is now on the edge of the quilt. Use your fingers to push the corners out (similar to when you use a pillowcase backing but much easier since you don’t have to reach to get to the corner).

View of the finished back

Press with an iron so it will lay flat. If you used fusible adhesive, fuse it down.

Hand sew the edges down. I’ll do this even if I’ve used fusible but I’ll make the stitches farther apart than if I hadn’t used fusible.

Other tips:

If you plan it right, you can machine sew them down as part of the quilting. For smaller quilts like the Feather series, I quilted the middle and part of the edges before the binding but went back and did more quilting after the binding was added so some of the quilting would hold the edges down.