Sound Waves Baby Quilt, QAL: Week 4 – My Hybrid Binding Method

Here we are in Week 4 of our quilt along! It’s hard to believe that I’m wrapping up my second quilt along! I am truly thankful for everyone who participated! This week we will be binding our quilts. This small quilt is perfect for my hybrid binding method. Why do I call it a hybrid method? You still make your binding, but it doesn’t get folded in half and pressed before you attach as you would do with traditional binding. After you attach it to your quilt, it works the same way as using your backing as binding.

I personally don’t like using backing as binding. The reasons for that are really just my own preference. I don’t think it looks bad to use the backing as binding. I just don’t like the process for my own reasons. I don’t like it that I can’t quilt off into the batting because it will look wierd when I fold the backing over for binding. I also find it cumbersome to roll the backing out of the way, trim the batting, and then try to trim the backing to a certain distance from the quilt top. So, my reasons for not using backing as binding are my own problem to deal with. If you like using backing as binding, go for it!

For the purpose of this post, I’ll define traditional binding as binding that is folded in half and pressed, attached to one side of the quilt, and flipped over to the other side of the quilt to attach it. There are a lot of variations within this. I’ll talk about a few of these later on in this post. Traditional binding can be tricky, and it just takes a lot of practice to get your binding to look nice. I think binding was probably the step that stressed me out the most when I first started quilitng. Joining the ends of your binding can be tricky and a little cumbersome. I always got frustrated when I got it all twisted and had to redo it. Practice took care of this too, but I wanted an easier way. This is how my hybrid method came about.

Steps for my Hybrid Binding Method

Just like traditions binding, you’ll need to start with cutting your strips. In the pattern, I instruct to cut (5) 2.5″ width of fabric strips. These instructions are based on traditional binding with the strips sewn together with diagonal seams. I always base the binding requirements in my patterns on this because it is what most people do. For my hybrid method, this quilt can be bound with (4) 2″ width of fabric strips.

Once you have your strips cut, you’ll attach them right sides together to one side of your quit. For this quilt, I used a 1/4″ seam allowance to attach the strips. You can attach to the back first and flit it over to the front or attach to the front first and flip it over to the back. I prefer to attach to the back first and then flip it over to the front, but just my preference. I’ll talk about why I do this later on in the post when I go over some of the variations. For this quilt, it’s better to attach your strips to the long sides first. This will allow you to use 4 width of fabric strips without having to sew any of your strips together. You can see how I attached the first two strips in the picture below. Full disclosure: I DID NOT measure these strips to be sure they were the exact size I needed. Pinning does help if you’re worried about stretching the binding, but I just sewed them on and then trimmed the excess afterwards.

Now that they are attached, you’ll press those two strips away from quilt so that you can attach the pieces to the short side.

Sew the strips to the other two sides, rigth sides together, with a 1/4″ seam allowance. Be sure that you keep the seam pressed so that the previous binding strips are pressed to the sides, away from the quilt as shown below. You don’t want to accidentally have the quilt pressed in on itself or the binding turned in towards the middle of the quilt. This would be a mess.

Once you have the strips attached to the short side of the quilt it should look like the picture below.

Press them out away from the quilt just like you did with the first two binding strips.

You can watch me attaching the strips on a mini project on my instagram here.

Now it’s time to flip those strips over to the other side and finish the binding.

Once you have all four strips attached, you can use any technique for using backing as binding. You’ll need a glue stich and your iron for this part. This makes a lot more sense if I just show you. So, check out my reel on this here.

Pros and Cons for my Hybrid Bindng Method

Pros:

-No trickiness when you go to join the ends of your binding. Side Note: If you’re struggling with joining the ends using traditional binding, it’s a lot easier if you join them with a flat seam instead of a diagonal seam. You can watch me do this here.

-No wierdness from trying to tuck one end of your binding into the other end.

-Tacking the front of the binding down with glue allows you to sew the top stitch quickly without having to use clips or having to flip it over to the other side as you go.

-It makes it easier to get nicely mitered corners.

-Uses less fabric. In the picture below, you can see my traditional binding next to the hybrid binding. The hybrid binding was made from thinner strips and still looks bigger than the traditional binding even though I used the same seam allowance for both.

Cons:

-I don’t like to use this method for T-shirt quilts. Since I attach the binding to the back and flip it to the front, I’d end up having my iron a little to close to the graphics. This could melt them. So, I typically don’t use this method for T-shirt quilts.

-It causes a little extra bulk at the corners. So, I only use regular quiltiong cotton for this. Anything thicker like flannel makes it a little hard to sew around the corners.

In the picture below, you can see that it does look a little different on the back compared to traditional binding.

A few other variations in binding

Do you sew the strips together with a diagonal seam or a flat seam?

Honestly, it’s your quilt. So do what you want to do. I used diagonal seams all the time for a long time because a lot of people say that’s what you’re “supposed to do”. Then one day, I decided to use flat seams. They use less fabric and are quicker to sew together. I also find that if you press the seams open, the flat seams don’t add significant bulk. The only thing left to worry about is asthetics. I’ll be honest, the difference is pretty negligible if you are using matching binding strips. Even with scrappy binding, it doesn’t look bad. It really all depends on your preference. I used scrappy binding with flat seams for the quilt below. I suppose if you were entering you quilt into a show, you would want to do diagonal seams. The judges may count off for binding with flat seams.

Do I attach the binding to the back first and flip it to the front or start on the front and flip it to the back?

I suppose you already know what I’m going to say on this one. Your quilt, your rules! I like to start on the back and flip it to the front. There has only ever been one quilt were I started the binding on the front and flipped it to the back. That quilt had some special circumstances due to some custom requests the client had. It is a whole other post…

I like to go from back to front for a few reasons. I like for my mitered corners to show on the front because I think they are a pretty detail. It’s also a good way to deal with any blocks where the pieces are slightly uneven. Put that one on the end and cover it with your binding. This is a lot easier to do if you flip the binding from back to front because the larger side of the binding will be on the front. Check out the picture below. When I cut my background pieces, I didn’t realize that I left some messed up edges in one of them. I was going to replace that pieces, but then I decided to leave it in there to make my point about using back to front binding to fix this. This was easily covered by the binding without the integrity of the quilt suffering. Of course, this can only do so much, and isn’t a substitute for squaring your quilt.

Ditch binding vs a more visible top stitch vs hand stitch

Well, that was mouthful… My favorite thing to do is to use a decorative top stith. It makes for a nice secure binding, and it looks good on both the front and the back. The others look nice too, and if one of those is your thing, we can still be friends. My reasons for not liking the others are my own issues to deal with. So, if those aren’t a problem for you, do what works for you.

Ditch binding involves flipping your quilt over so that the back part of your binding is facing up and sewing in the seam between the binding and the quilt. This stitch line will catch the front part of your binding and secure it without having any obvious lines other than the one that shows on the front of your binding. I definitely see the appeal, but I don’t like this method because I like to have the front of the binding facing up so that I can see to make sure the corners are cooperating for me.

A chunky hand stitch definitely looks nice. It’s also great for binding front to back. You can keep the seam allowance/the smaller side of the binding on the front of your quilt. You’re less likely to cut off any points this way. Also, since you’ll be sewing in between the layers with the hand stitch, you won’t have any extra stitch lines on the other side of your quilt. The big drawback for this one is that it just takes so long. At this point, I’m making too many quilts to spend so much time on binding.

Each Week on the Blog

I’ll link to all of the other weeks near the end of each post. I will add each post here as I have them. You can also find this on the Quilt Alongs Page.

Week 1 – Gather fabrics and cut pieces
Week 2 – Assemble your quilt top
Week 3 – Baste and quilt
Week 4 – You are currently at the Week 4 post