Add a flange binding to your quilt for an element of interest

Welcome to day four of binding techniques. Yesterday’s technique showed you how to prepare and sew a two-color binding to a quilt, where one color of the binding fabric is visible on the front of the quilt and another color fabric is visible on the back.

Again today, I’ll use two colors for the binding. The difference with today’s post is one fabric will be visible on both the front (top) and the back of the quilt while the second fabric will only have a sliver visible. The sliver is called a flange; some people like to call it faux piping.

A simple flange will add a nice element to a quilt.

This quilt, when finished, measures 68″ x 76″.

To determine the amount of fabric needed for the binding, the calculation is as follows:

1. 68″ + 76″ + 68″ + 76″ = 288″
2. 288 ÷ 40 = 7.2 strips (round up to 8)

Eight strips per color are needed:

• The flange fabric (burnt orange) strips are 1⅞” wide.
• The binding fabric (gray-black) strips are 1⅛” wide.

The flange fabric strips are 1⅞” wide and the binding fabric strips are 1⅛” wide.

Using the same method as yesterday, sew the same color fabric strips together, short end to short end using either the straight ¼” seam or the 45^o diagonal seam technique.

Once the strips are joined to make one long strip of each color binding, sew both colored strips, right sides together, lengthwise. Press the lengthwise seam away from the flange fabric (burnt orange in this case) and towards the binding fabric (gray fabrics) as shown below.

Press lengthwise strip’s seam away from the flange fabric.

Now for the one constant for all of the binding methods I know: fold the long binding/flange strip in half lengthwise with wrong sides together.

Fold the long strip in half, wrong sides together lengthwise and press.

Sew the binding to the back of the quilt with the (gray) binding fabric facing the quilt, and matching raw edges, as shown below. Follow the directions demonstrated on Monday.

Sew the binding to the back of quilt with the binding fabric facing the quilt.

With the help of Heirloom Clever Clips to hold the binding/flange strip in place, fold the binding over the quilt edge to the front of the quilt.

Now, with the binding fabric folded over the quilt’s edge, only a narrow strip of the flange fabric is visible on the quilt top.

TIP Should your desired effect call for a wider flange, add ⅛” when cutting the flange fabric strips. If a narrower flange is desired, reduce the width of the flange fabric strips by ⅛”.

Now to sew the binding strip to the front of the quilt. This technique requires stitching in the ditch on the seam line where the two fabrics were first joined lengthwise to form a long single strip. Using a ¼” stitch-in-the-ditch presser foot for this technique helps guide the stitching to follow the “ditch”.

Attach the binding to the top of the quilt using a ¼” stitch-in-the-ditch presser foot.

With the flange binding sewn into place, another quilt is completed!

With the flange binding added, the quilt is complete.

Today’s demonstration on adding a flange binding to a quilt is now complete.

Come back tomorrow when I’ll demonstrate an easy method for adding a binding to a quilt with corners that aren’t 90^o.

This quilt was made by Karin Hunt and was quilted by Heather Derksen of Red Willow Quilts. Karin is donating the quilt to Quilts of Valour Canada. Thank you, Karin.

This is part 4 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 3: Bi-colored quilt binding: 1 color for front another color for back

Go to part 5: How to bind a quilt with challenging corners

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