You’ve spent hours quilting your quilt, squared it up and trimmed all those threads and now it’s time to add that final finish (and my favourite part!) - binding. In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how I work out how much fabric I need to make the binding.
Binding for quilts is generally made from width of fabric (WOF) strips (selvedge to selvedge). If you’ve got dressmaking experience, you might be tempted to use Bias Binding BUT pre-bought Bias Binding is generally not wide enough, might not match your quilt & is only really required if you’re quilt edges are curved.
To make our own quilt binding we’ll be cutting 2.5” strips (the most common width used by quilters) and then joining them all together to make a long length. Generally, a quilt pattern will tell you how much fabric you need for your binding but if you’ve made a quilt without a pattern or adapted the size then you’ll need to work out how much fabric you need to cut your strips out of.
I often round numbers up - it’s better to have more binding than you require than be caught short. Get your calculator out!
Step One
Measure the length and width of your quilt (I do this in cm, as in the UK we sell fabric in metric units), add these together and then times by 2. This number is the perimeter of the quilt in cm, round this up to the nearest metre.
Step Two
Divide your perimeter by the width of the fabric you’re using for the binding, I generally use 110cm as it covers most quilting cotton fabrics. The number you get is how many 2.5” strips you need. Round this number up to a whole number.
Step Three
Then times the strip number by 6.35 (this is 2.5” in cm). This is how much fabric you need in cm. Round it up to the nearest fabric cut.
Example
Step One
My quilt measures 150cm wide by 170cm long.
150 + 170= 320
320 x 2 = 640cm perimeter (rounds up to 700cm perimeter)
Step Two
700/110 = 6.36 strips (rounds up to 7 strips)
Step Three
7 x 6.35cm = 44.45cm
Rounded up I need 50cm/0.5m/Half a Metre of fabric to make my binding.
Keep an eye out for my future tutorials on how to join the binding together and how to attach it to quilts.