See what a nice touch this is on my quilt. Totally adds another layer of bling and so easy to do! It is not sewn through the binding afterwards - I embroidered the binding fabric before applying it to the quilt.
Embroidered Binding tutorial:
1. Get your binding fabric and measure to see how many strips you will need to bind YOUR quilt.
I use a 2 1/4 inch strips to make a double fold binding. If you use a larger or smaller strip, adjust accordingly (it will be easy, you'll see).
2. Mark a line 1 inch from the edge of the fabric. This will allow you some room to embroider, so you won't be trying to embroider right on the edge of the fabric.
3. Next mark a line at 1/4 inch to the right of the first line. This 1/4 inch section will be in the seam allowance of your binding. I use chalk or blue pen because these lines must go away later.
I next marked another line 1/4 inch in. I later found this not to be necessary, but it gave me a barrier for my embroidery. So really you just need one 1/4 inch line.
4. Next mark a line 2 1/4 inches away from the first line. This will be your cutting line for your binding strip.
5 Continue marking, first a 1/4 inch line from the cutting line (for seam allowance), then a 2 1/4 inch line from the cutting line. Do this until you have the right amount of strips for your binding. I needed 6 strips.
from the first line to the 4th line the measurement is your binding width - mine is 2 1/4 inches.
6. Now find a nice contrasting thread and choose a pretty embroidery design off of your machine. I used my Viking Designer II and tried out several designs on a scrap of the binding fabric.
These are pretty, but took too long and weren't the right feel for my quilt. They also bunched up the fabric with all that back and forth on the design.
Bunched up
Here is the design I went for, it was faster and delicate-looking for my quilt.
7. Now I pinned some light stabilizer on the back, I used Stitch-and-Ditch-Paper-Stabilizer. Later, this product ripped off easily although there were little pieces in the stitching that I left in. So shoot me, there are lots of little bits of paper in my binding...
That is a picture of the paper on the back.
8. Now be careful and stitch in the right place (otherwise you just wasted a bunch of time marking all this). Stitch just to the right of the second line. Your first line is your cutting line, the second line is for the seam allowance, and if you stitch to the right of that line it will be perfect.
I put my foot right on the line. I don't want to get any of my design in the seam allowance accidentally. So stay right.
9. Now comes the monotonous part, stitching the design down the length of fabric 6 times (for my wallhanging). I was at an exciting part of my audiobook, so it wasn't so bad.
10. Cut on the cutting line. At first I used scissors thinking it would be hard to use a rotary cutter. But after cutting two, I went to the rotary cutting mat and did just fine. Remember the cutting line is the first line on the left, then there is another 1/4 inch line before your embroidery for a seam allowance. Remove the bulk of your stabilizer now.
11. Stitch the binding strips on the diagonal into one long strip.
12. Press the seams open and fold the whole binding in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, you know- how you always make a double fold binding...
13. Stitch it to the front of your quilt with a 1/4 inch seam. I like to use my walking foot, it is a quilt (right?) and sometimes you need an even feed when binding so you don't get uneven pulling on the layers of the quilt.
Flip it over and press and VOILA! Here is your embroidered binding, all pretty and looking like you took forever making that!!
Bummer, now I have to hand stitch it to the back. Maybe there's something good on TV, :)
have fun with this, Karen
That is so beautiful. Such a nice way to finish it off.
ReplyDeleteWhat a unique and lovely binding! I think this would look wonderful on wall hangings. Thanks for the great tutorial!
ReplyDelete