Hi all! Today I have a quick quilting tutorial for you on how to make quilt binding.

Over the years I’ve realized that I’m really good at underestimating how much fabric I’ll need for binding. 

I get so excited about getting to that point that I’m like “Its just a small strip of fabric around the outside of the quilt, surely I don’t need that much.”

And then I literally have half of what I need to bind it.

And then I’m sad.

So today I wanted to show you the method I go through to figure how much binding I need, and how to actually make the quilt binding before sewing it on. 

Determine the Length of Binding You Need

Step number one is very straightforward. 

Measure the sides of your quilt and add it all up to determine how many linear inches of binding you need to bind your quilt. 

For this example I’m binding a baby quilt that is 36” square.

36 x 4 sides = 144 inches of binding

Add 12 inches to whatever number you get just to be sure you won’t run out and will have a little wiggle room. 

If I add my extra 12″, I’ll need 156 inches of binding to bind my quilt. 

Now we know how long of a binding strip we’ll need. 

Determine How Wide of Binding Strip You Want

Binding strips are typically cut to a width of anywhere between 2 1/4” – 2 1/2” depending on your preference.

For those who have never made binding before, I personally prefer to go wider than narrower. 

At 2 1/4” I find that either my seam allowance is not perfect sewing it on, or the quilt is a bit thick, and the turn of the fabric ends up making the back of the binding have less coverage than the front. 

It takes doing it a couple of times to get the feel of what width binding you like working with.

Regardless of what you choose it’s going to look great, and no one will know but you.

For the sake of this example I’m going to go with 2 1/2” binding. 

Calculate how much fabric you need to make the quilt binding

Okay, next step, a little more math. 

For our example, we need 156” of continuous binding cut at 2.5” width. 

Fabric typically comes off the bolt at about 42” so we want to figure out how many strips we will need to cut to get to our 156″ to get all the way around the quilt.

Total length needed/width of fabric = how many strips you will need to cut.

In our case, 156/42 = 3.7 strips (but we’ll round up to 4 strips)

Now that we know how many strips we need, we can figure out how much fabric we’ll need. 

We already decided that we wanted each strip to be cut at 2.5 inches wide, and that we’ll need 4 strips.

4 strips X 2.5” = 10 inches of fabric to be able to get 156″ of continuous binding

If we ask for a third of a yard off the bolt, we will get 12” of fabric length cut at the 42” width for our binding. 

This is just the minimum. 

If you don’t trust your math, or are concerned you might cut something incorrectly and want a little more fabric just in case, have them cut you a bit more and you can’t go wrong. 

Choose and Cut the Quilt Binding Fabric

This is the fun part.

There are so many fun fabrics that you can make super fun bindings of.

Whether you use a fabric you already used in the quilt or something coordinating, have fun with it! 

You can even piece different fabrics together to make scrappy bindings! 

My new favorite binding fabric to use is a black and white stripe fabric.

When its folded over its make a super cute accent to the rest of the quilt where it otherwise might just be forgotten.

Not sure what to go with? This is is place I go online to to get pretty much all of my fabric. They have AMAZING variety and options available.

If you are at all on the fence about what to use. Start there.

Once you’ve mulled over the amazing options and decided on a winner, its time to sew the strips we cut above. 

And now that we have all the ingredients:

How to Make Quilt Binding 

There are two ways you can piece binding strips together. You can either do it with a straight seam, or you can do a 45deg angle seam. 

Why get fancy with an angled seam?

You are going to have many layers of the binding folded over itself when you sew it on. 

By doing the angled seam, you redistribute the bulk that is caused by the seam and avoid potentially lumpy bindings where the seams are folded on top of themselves.

The angled method is my preferred method so that’s what we’ll do today. 

Using your cutting mat, put one strip right side up following any horizontal line, ending the strip just beyond any vertical line. 

With your next strip, put it right side down following the same vertical line that your first strip ended at. 

Make sure your second strip ends just higher than your first strip so your two strips look like the picture below. 

Take your quilting ruler and, with the 45 deg angle line lined up with the bottom of the horizontal fabric, draw an angled line from corner to corner on the square of fabric where the two strips overlap.

Pin the two fabrics together, and sew right on the drawn line.

Using your ruler, trim off the excess fabric

Repeat this process to connect all of the binding strips together. 

Pro Tip: Be sure your strips are always off to the same sides so your angles are all pointing in the same direction, if you switch sides, your angles will be going opposite directions in the binding when its sewed. 

Iron the Binding in Half

Once all strips are sewn together, head to the ironing table and iron all of the small seams open.

Then taking the very long piece of fabric, iron the whole thing in half the long way. 

The entire length of the binding. 

Why do this?

This is going to allow us to have 2 layers of binding on the quilt.

2 layer folded binding is significantly stronger than just a single layer. 

By doubling it up, the quilting will fall apart before the binding does. 

Sew On and Bind! 

Thats it! Thats all I do to make quilt binding! 

All there’s left to do is sew it on and finish off that quilt.

Related:
How to Bind a Quilt

Math sucks, trust me I know. If you have any questions about how to calculate and make your quilt binding (or if you found a mistake in mine!) leave a comment below and I’ll be sure to clarify!