Yesterday on QUILTsocial we learned 3 ways to applique circles onto a quilt. My art quilt featuring Northcott Stonehenge Elements fabrics is looking awesome! I’ve already trimmed all of the edges of the quilt so today I’m going to give you some tips for sewing a flanged binding onto your quilt which will make it look like you’ve spent hours sewing a narrow piping under your binding.
The extra batting and backing are trimmed away from the quilt
Magic binding
Last year at my quilt guild meeting one of the members demonstrated “magic binding”. I thought it was a neat technique but when I got around to actually doing it I couldn’t remember how. I did some research and found this tutorial on YouTube:
Aunt Marti’s 52 Quilts – Susie’s Magic Binding Tutorial
Making my binding
For my quilt I wanted to have a light colored binding with a dark colored flange or accent color. I needed four strips the width of fabric for each color for the binding. The accent fabric strips are cut 1½” wide and the main color fabric strips are cut 1¼” wide.
The two strips for the flanged binding
The two different colored binding strips are sewn end to end using a mitered join. Once the strips are all sewn, the seams are pressed open.
The binding strips are joined end to end using a mitered join and the seams are pressed open
I sewed the two long strips together along the long sides and then pressed the seam towards the main fabric (the beige).
Press the seam towards the main binding fabric
The binding strip was them pressed in half lengthwise aligning the two raw edges. As you can see, since the accent fabric strips are wider they show a little bit on the other side.This will be the “flange” when it’s folded over to the front of the quilt.
Press the binding in half lengthwise and the flange appears on the one edge of the binding
The binding is sewn to the BACK of the quilt with the accent fabric (darker fabric) facing up. For more detailed instructions on sewing binding to quilts, you can check out my QUILTsocial post from June 2014.
The binding is sewn to the BACK of the quilt with the accent color facing up
Once the binding is sewn all the way around the quilt, it’s flipped around to the front of the quilt. The narrow strip of the darker fabric shows on the front side and then I top stitched along the seam between the dark and light fabrics.
The binding is flipped around to the front of the quilt
Topstitching along the seam between the main and accent colors
The art quilt is all finished!
My art quilt is looking great and I’m so pleased with the flanged binding. What an easy and impressive way to bind a quilt! Tomorrow is my last day for this week, so we’re going to talk about hanging quilts and I’m going to show you a SUPER easy way to label your quilts. Thanks for joining me today and hopefully after seeing this tutorial you’ll want to try sewing a flanged binding onto your next quilt.
The finished quilt
This is part 4 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 3: 3 ways to machine applique circles onto a quilt
Go to part 5: Making a fast and easy permanent label for your quilt
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