Binding Tutorial Part 1

I've been doing bindings assembly line style lately on the nursing home quilts. After doing the same thing a few hundred times, I've streamlined things a bit. It's not that I'm trying to be lazy, just efficient. So here is how I do it, step by step:

1. Quilt as desired and trim edges nice and straight. Make sure you save the edges for string quilts in the future.

2. Cut binding to desired width. I used to cut it to 2 1/4 inches until I realized I could pull strips out of the 2.5 inch bin. This seems to work well for a double fold binding. I never worry about cutting on the bias because I don't do scallops or curves.

3. Join binding end to end by sewing on a diagonal with right sides together end to end. You can chain piece these without having to take the strips off of the sewing machine. Rotate the strips at right angles and peek to make sure your seam is going to open the right way.
4. Trim the triangles off the corner, you can save these for cute little HST units later if you want to make yourself a little crazy.
4. Press the seams open and press binding in half. If you are going to make lots of this ahead of time, it is easy to store on an empty paper towel roll until you are ready to use it.