Friday, 19 August 2016

My favourite edge binding method for tops

I know it is mostly just bias binding but whilst I was making my Laurel top I thought it would be fun to take some pictures of the neck binding method that I use for a lot of my tops and post them here. I use this method on light-weight fabrics instead of bias binding the neck or putting in a large facing that often needs tacking down and gets in the way of ironing.

First I make some bias strips by cutting a few ( approximately 1.5 inch wide) strips of fabric diagonally so the stretch is across the width of each strip. When making quilts I would do continuous strip binding - there's a good tutorial on this by So Sew Easy - but as you don't need that much for tops it seems like a lot of hassle. 

The strips are then placed at right angles to each other and sewn together diagonally (along the black line). Once the seam is trimmed the pieces open up into a nice long strip of bias binding.


You can just use this strip as 'normal' bias binding but for this method I like to iron the strip in half wrong sides together. Then attach the binding to the right side of the neck edge (or any other edge you want to bind - it works pretty well for sleeves too) with the raw edge matching the raw edge of the top. I then stitch an appropriate seam allowance - usually 1/4 inch.


Once attached, I usually trim the seam allowance before pressing the whole lot onto the wrong side of the neck edge. You can then either top stitch it down or hand stitch if you don't want a line of stitching on the right side of the top. 

Voila - bound edge!


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