Quilt Binding Tutorial: Finishing Ends

Christy Needlecrafts, Sewing, Tutorials 9 Comments

So you know I’m pretty new at quilting. So I’ve spent quite a lot of time in recent weeks scouring the internet for tutorials and tips. It turns out there was one tutorial that I had a particularly difficult time finding.

When I was first putting the bindings on my placemats, I saw a tutorial somewhere about how to finish the two ends so that the binding appeared continuous. Of course, when it came time to finish my ends, everything I read said to just tuck one end into the other and sew them together. But that leaves a lump and a straight seam instead of the nice smooth angled seams that I wanted.

I KNEW the instructions were out there somewhere, and I KNEW it wasn’t that hard. I just couldn’t remember how to do it on my own. Well, I finally found the instructions somewhere in the depths of the internet, and of course, by now I’ve already forgotten where it was. So I’m writing up my own tutorial so that I’ll never forget again. It really is embarrassingly simple.

So you’re almost done with your binding. You left an 8-10 inch tail at the beginning, expertly mitered all your corners, and are now back, about 10 inches from where you started.

Your end tail is about the same length as your beginning tail, so they overlap by quite a bit.

All you have to do is clip the two ends so that the distance they overlap is the same as the full width of your binding strip.

My binding strip is 2.5 inches wide, so I lined the edge of my quilt up with a ruler and picked a spot for the seam. As you see above I clipped the first end at the 14 inch mark.

Then I clipped the other end at the 11.5 inch mark. So they overlap by exactly 2.5 inches.

Now is where it gets (slightly) tricky(er), and where you’ll be glad you left a nice wide gap between the two ends. You want to gather the quilt together and yank those two ends out. Unfold them and pin them right-sides together at right angles.

Then sew a straight line between the two inner corners (marked above).

And then clip off that unnecessary corner.


And now, flatten your quilt back out, re-fold the binding, press, and voila!

Perfect seam, perfect length, perfect everything! All that’s left is to sew down that last bit.

Yaaaay!

 

 

I hope you found this tutorial useful. If you like it, please do me a favor and pin it :o)