Mixing Edge Finishes

Last week I shared a link to the ThreadBenders challenge “Progressions” (click here to read that post), along with a post about my journey in making that challenge quilt. This week I’ll bind it all up. To complete my Progressions quilt I needed to have a binding on some of the edges, meeting up with a facing on others. Hmm. This may not be something most of you will ever want to do, but I hope you’ll find it interesting ~ or even helpful 😊. I started by making a sample from scraps to be sure I’d like the results.

I chose to do the faced edges first. The facing strips were cut 1 1/2″ wide, and sewn to the front of the quilt with a 1/2″ seam allowance after it was squared up, beginning even with an edge that will be bound (I apologize for the muslin quilt top and the light gray strip being so close in value).

Next I turned the quilt to the back and pulled the facing strip away from the seam. The back of the facing strip that’s showing should be a 1/2″ wide.

That portion of the strip is folded up and over the seam allowance.

Then folded again to encase the seam allowance, and pulled to the back of the quilt.

This causes the front of the quilt to look as if there is no edge finish. The front just ends at the edge, and the “binding” is completely on the back.

In the next series of photos I’ll be adding the binding. The faced edge is above the binding strip on the left (my sample quilt top has 3 stitched lines on it parallel to the edge). The binding strip is 2″ wide, and begins with excess hanging off the edge. Leave this tail at least 1″ long (mine was a bit short). The strip is stitched to the front of the quilt with a 1/2″ seam allowance.

The quilt is turned over to the back and the binding is pulled away from the seam as with the facing strip in the previous instructions. There will be 1″ of binding strip showing.

Next, the end of the strip is folded over the edge of the quilt.

and the corner is folded, as when wrapping a gift.

The raw edge of the binding strip is then folded up to the raw edge of the quilt,

And this newly created folded edge is folded again, up to the original seam on the back of the quilt.

Where the binding is then hand-stitched in place.

This is what a faced/bound corner looks like from the edge.

Once the edges were finished my Progressions quilt needed to be attached to a sleeve to make it “one quilt”, and then “Storms Coming ~ Rain~Puddle” was ready to be seen.

I think all of our Progressions quilts are quite intriguing. You can see them at the top of this post or, If you missed the link to the ThreadBenders site, here it is! Now I need to get them entered in the Ultimate Guild Challenge at the AQS Grand Rapids show, and see what happens.