How to Bind an Octagon Quilt

Apply binding to an octagonal quilt using bias-cut strips.

Use bias-cut fabric strips when binding an octagonal quilt if you want to save time and effort. The initial setting up and cutting of the strips may take some time but you can make longer strips requiring little overlapping and stitching while you're binding. Fabric cut on its bias is more flexible than when cut with the grain, and bias binding takes advantage of this stretchiness. It fits around the multiple corners of an octagonal quilt with less bulk, the one big advantage over attaching straight-grain binding strips to each edge.

Things You'll Need

• Cutting mat
• Binding fabric
• Straight pins
• Rotary cutter
• Sewing machine
• Thread
• Acrylic ruler
• Sewing needle
• Thread
• Scissors

Instructions

Make Binding

1. Measure the sides of the quilt with a tape measure and add their lengths together to arrive at the circumference. Choose the width of the binding you're going to make. Two and a half inches is most common but it can be between two and three inches.

2. Cut the binding strips using the bias binding method. Place a fabric square right side up on the cutting mat, then insert a pin in each vertical edge with the point facing inward. Put a pin in each horizontal edge pointing outward.

3. Fold the square in half on the diagonal with the wrong side on the inside of the fold. Press the fold lightly with your fingers, then cut along it with the rotary cutter to form two right triangles.

4. Place the triangles together with their right sides facing, matching a horizontal edge to a horizontal edge and a vertical to a vertical. The pins are your guides.

5. Stitch the long straight edge using the sewing machine to make a 1/4-inch seam allowance. Press the seam open.

6. Draw lines 2 1/12 inches apart that are parallel to one of the long edges using the acrylic ruler and a pencil. Align the pencil lines so that the pins match their opposites' positions as before. Pin the fabric shape into a tube with these lines matching.

7. Cut along the spiral lines of the tube using the scissors or rotary cutter to make long bias binding strips.

Attaching

1. Baste through the quilt top, batting and backing 3/8 inch from their outer edges to secure the quilt "sandwich." Sew several bias strips together to make one continuous piece of binding.

2. Pin the binding face down on the quilt top. Their edges should be even. Stitch the binding to the quilt top using a 1/4-inch seam allowance. Stretch the binding slightly to go around each corner of the quilt.

3. Fold the binding over the edge of the quilt and pin it to the back. Press under a 1/4-inch seam allowance as you go and handsew the binding to the quilt back with the needle and thread. Use the blind stitch so your sewing doesn't show. Cut the thread with the scissors and fasten it securely.

References

• Quilt Bug; Binding Charts; Bias Cut Binding
• Quilter's Cache: Learn to Quilt: Lesson Five -- Making/Adding Binding
• Coats and Clark: Needlecrafts: Sewing How-To's -- Hand Sewing

Resources

• Womenfolk: Quilts Through Time: Hexagon, Honeycomb and Grandmother's Flower Garden