How to Cut a Bias Binding

Video Transcript

"JEANNETTE WHITE: Hi. I'm Jeannette White on behalf of Expert Village and Piper's Quilts & Comforts located in Sugarhouse. Today, we're going to be talking about cutting biased binding for your quilt. The first thing you want to do is purchase about a yard and a quarter of fabric. The reason being is that a yard and a quarter is 45 inches and fabric is generally about 45 inches wide and that's going to give us a square. The next thing I'm going to do is fold this into a triangle and that is giving me my bias grain so that I can begin cutting my bias. The next problem we have here is that if I take my ruler and I start cutting this way, I'm going to get a very crooked line. I want to do it in one cut. So I'm going to fold this point in to the center, now this point in to the center and now what I want to do is get the distance from here to here no greater than 24 inches which is the length of my ruler. The next thing I'm going to do is lay my ruler down and use it as T-square. What I'm doing is lining up any vertical line in alignment with this fold right here and right here on this end. Then, I'm going to do my first true cut. And now, I've done this in one cut. Then you can begin cutting your 2-1/2-inch segments all the way up. We here at Piper's like our binding to be 2-1/2 inches as opposed to 2-1/4, we find that it works a little bit better and gives you a little bit more leeway. And that's how you cut a biased binding."