I have seen a lot of quilts. As a professional long-arm quilter, I have had hundreds of quilts in my home, not just to look at and enjoy but under the close scrutiny that quilting them requires. I have seen poorly-constructed quilts and award-winning quilts and everything in between. Because I also make my own quilts, I know the dozens of hours of planning and cutting and sewing (and always a little “unsewing”) that go into piecing a beautiful quilt top. I know how exciting it is to have the quilting turn that lovely top into a real quilt. But the quilt isn’t finished when it has been quilted, and the final steps should be given the same care and attention as the rest of the quilt: don’t rush through the binding.
Binding the quilt is the final step in making the quilt sturdy and attractive. The binding encloses all loose threads and raw edges so that the quilt remains useful and beautiful, even after repeated washings. It is the part of the quilt that receives the most handling, as the quilt is pulled across a bed or tucked under a sleeping child’s chin, or even folded for storage, so it should be sturdy enough to hold up under the stress of endless tugging. Besides being durable, a binding adds beauty to an already lovely quilt top by creating a defined edge, much like a picture frame around a painting. Your work of art deserves the best binding you can give it.
Bias binding, which consists of strips cut on the diagonal to the grain of the fabric, is the best choice for binding because of its flexibility, durability, and beauty. Whether the quilt will be hung on a wall for display, draped over the back of a chair, or spread on a bed for a cozy night’s sleep, because of its flexibility a bias binding looks smoother, holds up better under pressure, and feels better when touched.
Many quilters think that they will use more fabric if they cut the strips on the bias, because of what it lost in the unusably small bits that are the corners we discard. This is not usually the case, since there is also discarded fabric when using strips that have been straight cut, if you piece together the strips on the diagonal. If you are concerned that you won’t have enough fabric, then take the importance of a fantastic binding into account right from the planning stages of the quilt and be sure to have three-quarters of a yard of fabric for the binding set aside—you will have plenty of fabric and won’t feel the need to skimp on the cutting of the bias strips.
Some quilters are not sure it’s worth the trouble to find and cut on the bias, rather than just using the straight edge for a guide. I have found that simply folding the cut edge of the fabric to meet the selvedge, and then cutting along the fold, is as easy as cutting on the straight grain and gives a satisfactory bias cut. You will find that you have fewer strips to sew together, as your strips are longer when cut on the bias, thus actually saving yourself some time by using this method.
When a straight-grain binding is used on a quilt that will be hung up for display, the superior qualities of bias binding will be obvious in comparison: the straight-grain binding just does not hang with the fluid grace that is noted in the bias binding. Once again, its flexibility makes a big difference in its appearance. I have seen my own quilts, as well as those of other quilters, suffer when I have made the mistake of using a straight-grain binding.
When I was young and learning to make pies, my mother gave me an important key to great pie-making: Don’t put on your stingy-apron. I believe this applies to making quilts, too, especially when making the binding: take the time to make the best binding, the binding your quilt deserves. Give it a bias binding.
But what all these quilts have in common is that they leave my care before they are actually completed: they have not yet been bound.