Binding 101 - Part Four - Easy mitred join (no rulers!)

Welcome to part four of my Binding 101 tutorial.

Joining the ends of my binding was always a bit of a hit and miss affair. I used to fold one end inside the other and hope for the best. This didn't look good as it produced a lumpy, straight join when all the others were mitred and nice and flat.

I tried using various binding gadgets but could never figure out from one quilt to the next what to do, and got frustrated when I cut too much off, or cut the wrong way round.

Then one day I decided the only thing to do was to try and figure it out for myself, and I eventually came up with this method which for me is more intuitive and I can now actually remember how to do it every time!

Get a beautiful join in your binding

Give it a try next time you join your binding...

Start by leaving yourself PLENTY of room to work with. I start sewing my binding 10-12" from the beginning of the strip, and leave a good 12" gap at the end. The orange pins in this photo show where I started and stopped sewing:

Leave plenty of binding free

Now you need to take your quilt to the ironing board and have a few pins handy.

Take the right hand flap of binding and fold up at 45 degrees, then press:

Fold up at 45 degrees and press

Now take the left hand flap of binding and fold it downwards at 45 degrees so the two folds match up. Press.

Fold the left hand side downwards and press

So now we have marked where the binding is going to be joined, we are now going to pin the seam.

Open out the right hand binding strip. You can see the marks where we pressed.

See the 'V' where the pin points to

Now lay the left hand side over the top of the right hand side. Line up the pressed marks like this:

Line up the pressed marks

Open up the left hand binding and pin.

Open out the left hand binding strip

Pin the binding flaps together

Now mark a diagonal line.

Mark a diagonal line for sewing

Sew on the marked line

Hey presto! We have a mitred join.

Before I cut anything, I always fold everything back and check that my join is in the right place. Then I can safely cut off the excess binding.

Test for fit before trimming

Trim the seam to 1/4" and press open.

Trim the final seam

Finally, sew this last bit of binding to the quilt.

Sew down the final part of the binding

Join me in part five where we sew the back of the binding down and I give you tips for some great tools.