The next three videos will show you how to sew on a binding using a 2″ strip.
Tag: Video
Video 5: How to Join Strips for Borders and Bindings
Joining your strips on a diagonal makes the seam almost invisible. On a binding the bulk of the seam is distributed making the binding sit even throughout the quilt.
Click Here To Read The Transcript
Hello, my name is Aimee Griffin, from overallquilter.com
Welcome to video 5: How to Join Strips for Borders and Bindings.
Today we’ll be using:
- The Olfa Mat
- Clover Silk Pins
- Fons & Porter Marking Pencil
- A Small Ruler, and
- Your Strips
So we are going to join our strips together for borders, or for doing your bindings. And what I’m gonna do is, start by taking my first strip and laying it on my mat, lining it up with my grid. So this strip is laid horizontally.
My next strip is going to lie on top of it, but vertically. And again, I’m going to follow my grid lines on my mat. This way I know that I’m nice and straight horizontally, as well as vertically. I also overlap top and bottom, or top and side, where my selvages are. And the reason I do that is, it is much easier to see your corners, if you have a little bit of your overlap. Once you have one horizontal and one vertical, draw a diagonal line from the top corner, top left corner, to the bottom right corner. And then add two pins, one on each side of the line just to keep your strips together. Now, if you have multiple strips then take your strip, flip it over, and now this strip becomes your horizontal, and your new strip becomes your vertical. Again, overlap it, leaving your selvages, so that you can clearly see corner to corner. Draw your line, and pins on both sides of the line. Now the trick to having a perfect joint, is to make sure that you draw a straight line from that corner to that corner, but also to stitch right on top of that line, from corner to corner. And we’ll go to the Sewing Machine so we can show you how to do that.
So now, we are going to stitch right on top of the drawn line. I’m gonna start with a little piece, my starter, and I’m going to stitch right on top of that line. I’ve changed my foot to an open-toe foot, to an appliqué foot because it’s easier for me to see my stitching line. And once you’ve done your stitching, you should have a perfect joint. And what I’m looking at is to make sure that my piece is nice and straight. Once I have a nice and straight piece, then I can go ahead and cut my quarter. And I just do it with my scissors. By just an approximate quarter. And we’ll take it to the Ironing Board, and we’ll press that seam open. Once that seam is pressed open, you’ll have a nice joint. And you do that with all your strips.
Video 4: Squaring Up Your Quilt
As you get ready for binding, it’s important that the quilt is straight. Our fourth video shows how to cut around your quilt making it ready for binding.
A special thank you to Karen Reardon for letting us use her quilt, “Sunshine and Shadows” for the demonstration!
Click Here To Read The Transcript
Hello. My name is Aimee Griffin from overallquilter.com.
Welcome to video number 4, Squaring Up Your Quilt. So you’re done with your quilt top, you’ve gotten it quilted, and you’re ready to put your binding on.
The first thing you want to do is, make sure that have nice, straight edges. Sometimes, when you’re quilting, or with your quilting, your borders tend to get a little bit distorted depending on how much quilting you’ve e put on them. So today’s video, I’m going to show you how to take your Square Ruler, and your Long Ruler, and get a nice, straight-edge cut, so that your binding will sit nice and straight.
But before that, I want to show you some patterns that we’ve been working on before a Fling collection, and here they are. Here’s six of twelve current Floral Fling patterns available on overallquilter.com. Just click on the online shop link. My favorite is the Monarch. These are all raw edge appliqué patterns, great for lots of thread play opportunities.
Today’s tools are:
- The Olfa Mat, Rotary cutting mat.
- A 10 ½ inch Square
- A 6 ½ by 24 inch Long Ruler, and
- A 60 mm Rotary Cutter. I like the 60 mm when I’m squaring up because I’m going through multiple layers. Remember, you are going through your top, your batting, as well as your backing. So, having the 60 mm gives me a better grip on my, on my cutting.
So we’re ready to cut our quilt down or trim our quilt down, so that we can add our binding. But we’ve got to make sure first that we are even, all the way through. That our border is even all the way through. If you’ve started with the 6 ½ inch border, once you’ve taken that seam in, you’re now down to 6 and a ¼. The more quilting you have, the more chances of your border being distorted. So, I’m gonna take my Square Ruler and I’m going to position it so that I can square down to 6 inches all the way around, making sure that my borders all are consistent. Take your 12 ½ or your 10 ½ inch Ruler, Square Ruler, and line up the 6 inch line with the outside border and inner border seam. I’m gonna make sure that, that is nicely lined up. And if you need to wiggle your quilt a little bit, it’s okay. You wanna make sure that you’re nice and straight. My 6-inch line is nice and straight on that seam, and my 6-inch line is nice and straight on this seam. Now I can take my Rotary Cutter, and cut all the way out. And I always start on the corners because I want to use my Square on the corners. So I’m gonna do one corner, and then I’m going to continue using my 6 ½ inch Ruler, and I’m just going to turn my quilt, and this is a fairly large quilt, so I want to put it on my table. And the other thing you don’t want to do, is have your quilt dragging on the floor because it does pull on you. You want to make sure that you have the entire quilt on the table, which is sometimes kind of hard if you don’t have a big enough space. That’s why I like the large mats. So, I’m gonna take my 6 ½ inch Ruler, I’m gonna find my 6-inch measurement and once again, line that 6-inch line with the seam that’s between my outside border, and my inside border. That last seam that you have there. Now I’m nice and straight, all the way through. Now, if you’ve seen my first video, the cutting video, you’ll know that when I cut a long piece, I cut half way, re-position my hand and the cut the rest of the way. And I’m going to do that again when I’m cutting my borders. Once again, ensure that you have a nice straight line. Start, go half way, Rotary Cutter down, re-position your hand, and cut all the way. And now, we’re going to go ahead and move our quilt down again, and as you see, we are doing it in sections because this is a large quilt. So, I’m going to move my quilt, re-position my quilt, making sure once again that my 6-inch line is sitting right on that seam. And I’m going to cut halfway to my Ruler, re-position my hand, and cut all the way through. Now, as I get closer to the corner, we’ve got one more. One more long Ruler, and then we’ll use our Square Ruler again. And I’ll show you how to do that again, one more time. Take my Long Ruler, find my 6-inch line. Now, not all borders are not 6 ½ inches. So if you’ve got 8 ½ inch border, you’ll need a larger Ruler. You’ll need an 8 ½ inch Ruler. I’m going to go ahead and start, go halfway, re-position my hands, and continue through. Now I’ve gotten to the corner. So I’m going to take my Square Ruler, and once again, I’m going to position that 6-inch on the corner there. Now, my Ruler is not big enough. So before I do that, I’m going to take my Long Ruler one more time, and get that, get that cut just a little bit so that I can use my Square Ruler. Once again, I’m going to find my 6-inch line, here’s my 6-inch line. I’m going to line that up with my corner seam, and I’m going to cut, and then I’m going to cut on top one more time.
And you have a nice 90 degree angle. And you want to do that all the way through, catching or cutting all corners, and all along edges.
And you’ll be ready for your binding.
How to Make a Perfect Cut
We are excited to present the first of a series of videos we’ll be doing over the next couple of months! I’ve been pushing Aimee to do this for the last two years! We’re going to try and keep them short and informative. We hope you find them helpful. Let us know what you think in the comments below or just send us an email.
Click Here To Read The Transcript
Hi, my name is Aimee Griffin from overallquilter.com.
This is our first of our many instructional videos. So, be sure to check back often for new clips.
So meet your selvages together, and give it a nice press, pressing just up and down, getting rid of any creases that the fabric might have.
So, we’re learning how to get a perfect cut, and the tools that I like to use are :
- A 12 ½ Square
- A 6 ½ by 24, it could be an 8 ½, but I really like the 24 length. That’s really what I’m looking for (6 ½ x 24 ½ Quilting Ruler), and
- A Rotary Cutter (45mm). I like to use the 45 mm, it just fits better in my hand. 60 mm’s are nice for, when you are going through multiple layers.
So let’s get started. And we have taken the fabric over to the Ironing board, we have met our selvages. Very important to get that grain to sit nice and straight. We’re going to lay it on our mat. I am using a 24 by 36 size mat (24 x 36 Cutting Mat) for the length and the width. The bigger the mat, the easier it’s going to be for me to get a nice perfect cut because of the room that you have. So we’re going to take the 12 ½ inch Ruler and lay it right on top of our fold, ensuring that we have a nice straight edge. What you’re looking for, is to make sure that that fold is nice and straight. If your fold is not nice and straight, take it back to your ironing surface and give it another good press. That usually will take care of uneven folds.
Take your long Ruler and we’re going to but that Ruler right next to that 12 1/2. Once you have done that then you can slide that Square away, but maintain your hand holding down nice and firm on the long Ruler. We are now ready to square up our side or to get an even cut on our side.
We’re going to take our Rotary Cutter, expose the blade and start. When you hold your Rotary Cutter, you want to put your index finger on these little knobs. While holding firmly down, you wanna put your body weight in too. I’m going to be cutting halfway till about the 12 inch line and re-position my hands. And I’ll show you how to do that now.
Start at the very bottom with your body weight, go ahead and go just to about the 12 inch line. I do this so that my Ruler will not move as I’m going all the way through to the end. So I’m gonna re-position my hand by removing my left hand while laying my right, and then I can go ahead and move my hand back up again. And then I’m going to pick it up at the, about the 11 inch line and continue all the way to the end. Before I lift my left hand, I’m also going to ensure that I have cut through my layers. Once I’ve ensured that that’s done, then I can go ahead and take my left hand out. Its very important that you do that, so that your Ruler does not move too many times if you start down here. Because your hand is further down at the bottom, there is no weight on the ruler, and that’s what causes the ruler to move. Another reason for the ruler to move is, if it doesn’t have grips or sand paper dots. Another good idea to add to your ruler, if your ruler does not have those sand paper grips or dots.
We are going to be cutting a 4 ½ inch strip. So again, what you want to do is take your ruler and find that 4 ½ inch line or measurement. There’s my 4 ½ inch line. So I’ve laid my ruler so that the 4 ½ inch measurement is lined up on the edge of my fabric and I’m also making sure that my fold is nice and straight. So there’s my line ensuring that that’s nice and straight.
Rotary cutter, you also wanna make sure that when you hold your ruler down, you also wanna put a little bit of section on it. You also don’t want to hold your ruler down with your hand like this because again, it might possibly scooch on you. Give it a good grip. And once again, we’re going to start at the bottom. I always start a little bit before my fabric so that I know that I’ve cut through that fold. Going to go up again to about the 12 ½ inch line, take my right hand and re-position my left hand. I’m never, never do I want to go backwards with my Rotary cutter because you end up cutting, and getting little slivers all through. So make sure that you start at the 12 ½ where you left off, and go completely forward towards, away from you.
Once again, I’m gonna ensure that my, I’ve cut through my layers, and then I can take my hand out.
And that is how you get a perfect cut.