Quilting: Expert Guides and Resources

Quilting results in pieces prized for both usefulness and beauty. The long history of quilting offers ages-old tips, and modern technology throws in some shortcuts, if you want to take them. But the lingo hasn’t changed very much and tips for choosing quilting fabric remain practical as well as creative. Knowing how to apply common fabric yardages to quilting is useful, and so is having a list of all the materials that go into a finished quilt.

A border is a strip (or strips) of fabric that frame the edges of the quilt. Your entire quilt top is usually bordered, but you can also have borders surrounding your quilt blocks or as part of the quilt block design.A quilt's borders can be wide or narrow, pieced or appliqued, or a combination of techniques. Always try to choose a border that complements rather than clashes with your blocks.

If you have chosen to machine quilt your project, you need to prepare your machine for the chore at hand. Each machine quilting technique requires a different type of presser foot and machine setting, so read through the following information carefully. If you have pin basted your quilt together, you must remove the safety pins as you approach them.

You can use the same process for making a continuous bias binding with different size fabric squares to make less binding — it all depends on what you need for your project. Use the guide below to help you estimate the amount of fabric needed to make the correct amount of binding for your project. If you want binding that’s 4 inches wide: A 44- x 44-inch square of fabric produces about 13 yards A 36- x 36-inch square produces 9 yards A 20- x 20-inch square produces only about 2.

When making bias strips for your quilt, you can either create one long strip or cut individual strips and then sew them together to get the length you need. You can use either of these methods to produce different types of bias binding. To end up with a continuous binding strip, follow these steps: Cut a 44" x 44" square of fabric (with selvages removed) in half diagonally to make two large triangles (see a in the following figure).

Self-binding is a quick and easy way to bind small quilting projects. Also known as fold-over binding, a self-binding is made from excess backing fabric that’s trimmed to size and folded to the front side of the quilt to enclose the raw edges. This binding is best only for small projects because it’s a straightedge binding and therefore doesn’t have the flexibility of a bias binding.

You can create bias strips by simply sewing strips together. Many quilters prefer this stitch-as-you-go method because it’s a good way to use up an odd-size piece of fabric. Because you're cutting bias strips instead of a perfect square, it doesn’t matter if your choice of binding fabric has been cut into previously.

The double-fold binding method uses a single layer of fabric on the edges of the quilt, making it more economical than traditional bias binding. This type of bias binding isn’t quite as durable as traditional binding, so use it for projects that won’t be handled or washed frequently, such as wall hangings and table runners.

Traditional bias binding, as you would expect, is the old-fashioned way to bind a quilt. The binding is made from a wide strip of bias-cut fabric that’s folded down the center lengthwise. Each lengthwise half of the strip is then folded again before being attached to the quilt, giving the top and back of the quilt each two layers of binding.