Invisible Binding

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my Have a Gander post. They quite energised me to finish it so instead of having a go at making another bread basket for my ‘Friday Night Sew In’ I set to and got on with making my Goosey WALL HANGING.

Yes, that’s right, I finally decided that it wasn’t going to become a cushion, mainly because as Fiona from Celtic Thistle Stitches pointed out cushions can receive some rough treatment and the thought of my geese being sat on was too much to bear 😉

Now a couple of months ago my Quilter’s group had a speaker visiting us and this lady didn’t like binding her quilts preferring to have a sort of invisible binding instead (until that point I don’t think I’d ever considered that there was a different way of finishing off a quilt!).

I remembered that talk when I was pondering about binding my wall hanging and decided to try the ‘invisible’ finishing off technique this lady spoke about.

I discovered that this is called facing a quilt and that’s what I did on Friday.

I found some tutorials on the good old internet and followed this one by Quiltmaker in particular but threw in some of the hints and tips of the others as well!

This is the process I followed (documented for my own benefit so I’ll be able to do it again!)

1.Measure long sides of quilt. Cut 2 1/2″ strips 1/4″ smaller than this measurement.

2. Measure short sides, cut 2 1/2″ strips to this length.

3. On one long side of all 4 strips press under 1/2″ .

4. Place one long strip, right sides together on the quilt, match the ends of the strip to the sides of the quilt as below.Pin at both ends (remember this long strip is 1/4″ short so it will need to be eased into position – this apparently helps to flatten the facing when it is flipped to the back of the quilt).

Repeat with other long strip.

5. Using a walking foot sew the long facing strips to the quilt using a 1/4″ seam. Begin at one short end, turning the corners with one diagonal stitch, as shown.

6. Position the short facing strips, right side down, along the short sides of the quilt. Cut the ends of the strips so they overhang the folded edge of the long facing strips by about 1″

7. Sew in place.