French Face Binding

Cut 4 strips of satin lining fabric. Fold them lengthwise and iron to crease.

Use a bias square ruler to measure four 3-1/2" squares of fabric on the straight grain. Iron the square in half to form a triangle. 

Pin the triangles to right side on each corner of the quilt with the fold facing inward. Align the folds with the seam. 

Pin the folded strips to the top of the quilt with the fold facing inward. Pin the cut ends of each strip over the triangles, but not quite to the ends. About a 1/2" of the point should be uncovered.

Sew the binding to the quilt all the way around along the existing seam line. Trim each quilt corner at a 45 degree angle. Do not clip the triangles! The point of the triangles should stick out passed the quilt where the corner was cut off. Turn the binding inside out, pushing the corners into the binding. Slide the strip ends under the corner so that no raw edges show.

Secure the binding by hand. The binding will be entirely on the back of the quilt and not visible from the top. It's the perfect finish for a velvet crazy quilt.

Satin Blanket Binding

Blanket Binding

A blanket is not the same as a quilt. A blanket only consists of one heavy piece of fabric that isn't quilted. They are usually fleece or wool. They are bound with a blanket stitch or with wide satin binding that is available in packages.

4-3/4 yds, single folded measures 2″ wide folded. It’s meant to be sandwiched around the edge of the blanket material, to finish it off. One package will finish a crib size blanket. Two packages will finish a twin size. Three packages will finish a throw size.

To determine how much you need, add the length of all 4 sides of the blanket together and add 10″.

Trim a straight edge on the cut sides. It's fine to leave the selvages attached.

The binding has one edge that is 1/4″ shorter than the other. The shorter edge is the one that should face up when you sew, and will be on the right side of your blanket. The long edge goes on the bottom so the needle will catch it.

Open up the binding and, starting around the midway point of one long side, sandwich the edge of the blanket in the binding. Make sure you are getting the blanket edging all the way to the inside fold. Small binder clips are helpful to hold the binding in place. Do this all the way down the side, stopping a few inches from the corner.

Set up your sewing machine for a wide zigzag stitch with a normal stitch length. Begin sewing right at the beginning of the binding, and let your zigzag stitches straddle the edge of the binding facing up.

When you get a few inches away from a corner, you’ll need to stop and create a mitered fold. You can either leave the needle down in the fabric and do it at the machine, or secure with a backstitch and remove from under the machine, for easier folding. Open up the binding at the corner and position it so that it creases the binging on the right.

Fold the bottom binding back over the edge of the right side, creating a mitered corner. Secure in place with binder clips and continue stitching.

To add in a new piece of binding, simply clip it into place 1″ or so over the previous edge, and continue sewing.

Add a few hand slip stitches at the folded corners and where the new binding joins with the old, just to keep everything secure.

The Stitch-N-Ditch foot is supposed to align the fold on the back with the top seam. It has four fences to adapt the height to accommodate different batting thicknesses. The fence glides along the edge of the binding. The guides on each fence can be adjusted to stitch bindings 1/4-1" wide. When you sew along the seam, the needle catches the binding on the back if it's tucked under far enough. It was marketed for quilters. However, I think it might be better for sewing satin binding. I've read a lot of bad reviews about it not catching the fold. I personally haven't used this foot.