Wednesday 20 April 2011

Rainbow Binding Tutorial

As promised here is a tutorial on how to make the rainbow binding you can see on my Eye Spy Quilt!

1. Cut 1.5" strips from your rainbow fabrics (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo/Purple, Violet/Pink = 1 group of strips).  The strips should be approx. 13" long (you can cut longer but I find sewing longer, thin strips increases the chances of wobbly seams!).

I have 2 groups of strips laid out here.

2. Sew each group of strips together using a 1/4" seam.  You can have as many 'groups' of rainbow strips as you wish (for my 37" square quilt I needed approx 7 groups). 


3. Join the groups together and iron the seams open.



4. Lay the piece on your cutting mat with the strips going horizontally across the mat.  Cut 2.5" strips.




5. Join these new strips together, piecing the pink end to the red end so that the rainbow pattern continues in order.  You should now have a long rainbow patterned strip.


6. To calculate how much binding you need to go round your quilt, add up the 4 sides of your quilt & add 10".  Keep adding strips to your rainbow binding until you have enough.


7. Iron the long rainbow strip in half lengthways.  Because of so many internal seams, I found it easier to pin the top of the strip as I was folding, making sure the seams stay open inside the binding.  Then I ironed the binding flat with the pins still in.



8. If you are not sewing your binding onto your quilt straight away, it is a good idea to wrap it around a piece of cardboard to keep it flat.


9. You are now ready to sew your binding onto your quilt.  There are numerous tutorials out there on how to do this.  Check out Red Pepper Quilts and Crazy Mom Quilts to name but a few.

Have fun making your own rainbow binding.

10 comments:

  1. Oh, how cool is that?!?!? I NEED to make something to bind, now!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am surely going to use this idea, and thank you, I should have figured out before that one could pin when ironing and avoid burns but it had never occurred to me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you - what a nice clear tutorial and guess what? ... now I get to pdf you!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Multi coloured, pieced bindings are my favourite.
    Great tutorial.
    Deborah

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh that's fabulous - you really pieced that binding!

    ReplyDelete
  6. love it i am going to do this on my next quilt.....thanks for the directions

    ReplyDelete
  7. I wonder if one can use scrap fabric also to make the binding? Thanks for the directions. I found your link to your blog on facebook.

    ReplyDelete
  8. love it. i really need a personal lesson. can i visit you in belfast? :o) ireland is on my bucket list.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to leave me a comment. I really appreciate it & I will always reply. (If you don't get a reply from me it is because you are a 'no reply comment' blogger. You might want to change your blog settings to make sure folks can reply to your comments more easily.) Jxo