The Easiest Cheat for Binding a Quilt

This Fall has been filled with quilt making projects and outings for us. We started off with the super easy and adorable cheater quilt, made quilt binding, and took a trip to the Quilt Market. Today we have a quilt project brought to you by Rae from Made by Rae.

Rae is always sewing up new projects like the cutest baby tights, the dapper dillingers, and the prettiest chevron purse. She is here to show all of you the Cheater Quilt Bind-Off. Intrigued? I thought so. Rae will take you through the step-by-step tutorial for using the back of your quilt for an easy binding after the jump.

This is a tutorial to show you how to use the fabric on the back of a quilt to bind it off.  Most quilts have a separate strip of binding that goes around the outside of the quilt. Here I'll show you how to take the backing and fold it over the edge of the quilt to finish it. This works best for small baby or doll quilts.  The Crayon Box Quilt Tutorial for the quilt top used for the photos in this tutorial was first posted by me for Sew Mama Sew. The quilt pictured above is the Storytime Squares Quilt which is available as a free pattern download/tutorial on my blog.

Step 1: After quilting the layers of your quilt together, trim the batting along the outside of the quilt right to the edge of the quilt top.

Step 2: Trim backing (the yellow plaid fabric in my photos) to ONE INCH all the way around the quilt.


Step 3: Starting near a corner and working clockwise around the quilt, fold the backing in half so that its raw edge is lined up with the edge of the quilt top (it will now be 1/2" wide).  In the photo below, I have folded the edge on the left:

Step 4: Fold backing one more time along the edge of the quilt top so that it overlaps the quilt top by 1/2".  Pin in place.

Step 5: Mark a diagonal line at the corner.  The base of the line should start where the corner of the quilt top is (under the backing) and end 1" from the corner along the raw edge.

Step 6: Fold backing along line

Step 7: Fold the backing in half again (I drew a line in the first photo with marker so you can see where) to line up raw edge with edge of quilt top.


Step 8: Fold backing over again at the quilt top edge so that it again overlaps the quilt top by 1/2." Repeat this method all the way around the quilt until you have the entire quilt backing folded and pinned.

Step 9: Stitch close to edge of backing around entire quilt to finish.


In the photo above, you can see that your quilting lines will be visible past the stitching for the binding since they go all the way to the edge of the quilt top. As long as my stitching blends in with the quilt backing, I don't sweat this too much, but if you don't like how this looks you can pull out those threads and knot them where you want them to end using a needle.

Ta-daaaah!  Finished quilt!

This is genius! Make sure to stop by Made by Rae for more exciting tutorials and patterns. You can also find Made by Rae on Facebook and Twitter for more updates.