First off, this was a really bad idea. Yes it works. You can absolutely bind an entire quilt with 1” strips using the binder. It will also be fast. But it won’t be pretty. There are other uses for the binder, and the flower is a great one with instructions below- but if you want to bind quilt edges with it, buckle up and prepare for a bumpy ride.
Before we go any further, this quilt project is almost complete. By now if you have been following week by week the quilt top is complete, possibly quilted and buttons sewn on placket row. This is also the last foot tutorial for the project. So what happens next? First Monday of the month happens! I’m endeavoring to bring a new downloadable pdf quilt pattern once a month, starting off with two versions of the 10 foot quilt, a simple no adornments version and the one we have made over the past two months. So don’t forget to follow me on Facebook or like me on Instagram (links on bottom of page) for more sewing goodness.
I spent countless hours with the binding foot foot this year, mask making. It is now one of my best sewing friends. Even so, I will never use it on another quilt edge; for many reasons. The binding is so narrow that there is no room for error. The quilt edge must be cut exactly perfect, and you have to feed all three layers though the narrow foot perfectly or the binding will sew off the side. If that happens, it’s a royal pain to rip the stitching (with out removing the fabric from the foot), pull the whole thing backwards through the guide and start where you left off. Don’t even think about using binding strips that have been joined. The seam, even at a diagonal, will never go through the narrow end of the guide smoothly and will almost certainly cause your binding to jump off the quilt. Then there’s corners, and the final joining (impossible). By the end of this binding I didn’t care how it looked I was just happy it was done.
So don’t do it. Bind in a way you are comfortable with. There are better feet for this, and I will talk about them in the future, but this is not the binding foot you want for quilt edges. That’s why this quilt has a center flower, because the binding foot needed a chance to redeem itself.
Cut:
1” x WOF contrast fabric
2.5” x WOF white
Cut end of contrast fabric to a point so it can be fed into the binder. Sew just a few stitches to make sure it’s in correctly, then feed the 2.5” strip through the center guide of the binder. Sew down length of strip, and trim both ends even when done.
Attach the ruffler to your machine, and set to 1 for every stitch and check that the depth lever is up and the top screw is fairly tight. Sew the raw edge of your strip to create a very tight ruffle. It should at this point naturally want to curl up. Trim all threads, and twist the strip around it self tucking the edges under. Hand stitch the flower to secure it, and use a button to hide the center edges and secure the flower to the quilt center.
Congratulations, that’s 10 vintage sewing machine feet in one quilt! Come back next week for Free First Monday, get the PDF of the pattern, and see two gorgeous versions of this quilt, one in Kaffe Fasset and one in Tula Pink!
