I start with the tail of my binding cut square, then I go around the quilt. I have some tips for mitering the binding in there, too.
When I come back to the beginning, I cut the last tail so that the tails overlap a certain distance. That distance is the binding cut width, and you should know what that is. If you don’t know, you just measure your binding plus a quarter-inch. That’s how far that the tails need to overlap. Then you stick your fingers in the top of the binding to unfold them and bring them together so the right sides stick together and the ends line up. I call that “the kiss.”
After we turn the tails, we do kiss, twist and wiggle. It’s kind of like two dolphins jumping in the air kissing. Put the right sides together and then twist. It doesn’t matter which one you twist which way, but you twist so they make the corner of the square. Then it’s the wiggle. You wiggle the tails so that an eighth of an inch of each tail sticks out beyond the other. Then you can sew from crevice to crevice and it comes out fitting perfectly.
It’s the weirdest thing. It’s hard to describe in words. You kind of need the diagram. I hope that gives people the idea that it’s not terribly complicated because it’s broken down into doing this simple step, then this simple step and this simple step.
I think some tail-joining techniques that are written elsewhere have this thing. All of a sudden there’s this magical picture and you say, “How on earth did you get there?” It went from nothing to, “There you go,” and how did you get there? I think I’ve helped people by breaking it down into simple steps. Each step is quite simple, and it turns out that it works. That’s a thrill for all of us.
For a CD recording of the whole Conversation, visit:
www.How-to-Quilt.com/products.php
Happy Quilting!
Penny Halgren
www.How-to-Quilt.com
Learn 6 Different Ways to Bind Your Quilts with Perfection - You'll Have Smooth and Square Mitered Corners; Hand Sewn Blind Stitches that are Completely Hidden; a Smooth Closing Where the Beginning and End of the Binding Meets; and Even Edges All the Way Around Your Quilt.
www.HowToBindAQuilt.com
