Welcome to part two of my binding tutorial!

We are starting with the trimmed quilt and binding strip that we prepared in part one.

Now we are going to attach the binding to the front of the quilt by machine.

First you need to set up your needle position. I like to sew my binding on with just over 1/4" (about 5/16") allowance.

Use your ruler to work out where your needle needs to be. If you have a machine where you can adjust the needle position, this is easy.

If you can't adjust your needle, work out where you need the edge of the quilt to be as you are sewing. You can mark this with a bit of masking tape.

I use my walking foot when attaching the binding.

Set up your needle position between 1/4" and 3/8"

Now lay the binding on top of the quilt with the raw edges together.

Make sure you leave a really generous allowance of binding free - at least 10" for joining at the end.

Start sewing your binding about halfway down one side of the quilt. Stitch length about 2-2.5mm.

...

Here is part one of my step by step binding tutorial.

I always find this the hardest part of writing instructions and patterns, so I decided to take step by step photos as I did the binding on the Modern Triangle Sampler. There are many different approaches to binding but this is the method I have tweaked over the years to suit me.

Binding 101

Part One - Trimming your quilt

Once the quilting is complete, trim your quilt. If there is a handy seam close to the edge, I use a ruler and measure from this seam to the outside so that I can keep this distance the same. Cut with a rotary cutter. Here I can see that if I use the 4 1/8" line on this border, I can trim the outside edge close enough so I won't see any batting when I sew on my binding.

Line the ruler against the border seam and trim

When you get to a corner, use the ruler to keep everything square. Square corners will be your friend!

2. Preparing the binding strips

First you need to work out how many strips you...