The hand quilting is finished on the vintage star quilt; the farm girl and I waded through fabric to find just the right binding fabric. Now, it's time to figure.
When I started quilting, figuring the amount of fabric needed for binding and the length of binding I needed for my quilt was a big challenge. Over the years I read several books and blogs with tips and trends for determining binding length; taking bits and pieces here and there to make my own way.
First let me say I generally use the continuous bias binding method; two inch cut. After piecing the fabric strips together the continuous binding strip is folded in half and pressed. Raw edges are sewn to the front edge of the quilt with mitered corners and a hidden overlap at the ends. The binding is now turned to the back and hand stitched in place. To find how much is needed a little math comes into play.
* add the measurements of all four sides of the quilt
* to that # add 15" for joining seams and finishing edges
this # gives the length of binding needed for the quilt
* to this # multiply the width of your binding (mine is 2)
* find the square root of that # and you have the yardage needed
Like I said, I have no idea where this formula came from but it works wonders! Also http://www.generations-quilt-patterns.com/bias-binding.html has excellent charts for yardage yields for bias cut bindings. I keep a copy in my binder for shopping trips; this makes remnant bin opportunities mindful purchases:)
Now, I'm off to finish the bias binding on my daughter's hope chest quilt because so many other projects are calling my name!!!
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