I'd stopped by my local quilt shop to pick up some needles and got to chatting with the owner about this quilt and my tentativeness about adding the piping. She was quick to suggest that I merely needed to sew the piping to the binding so that the two could be applied to the quilt in one step. She took me over to a wall quilt on display to show me the flange that had been added in the binding. Yes, flange. She kept saying flange; I kept saying piping. Granted my piping which will show just 1/8th of an inch has no filling so may not technically be a piping, but the flange on this shop sample was very wide (more than a 1/4 inch less than a half?) so I could see why she kept referring to it as a flange. Couldn't resist a google and it appears that size may indeed be the difference between piping and flange, piping being narrow, flange being wide.
Be that as it may, I just couldn't bring myself to sew the piping to the binding first, mostly because of the bulk it might create at the mitered corners. I plan to machine sew the binding from the front after it has been turned to the back, and getting into those corners at the miters is tricky enough. But also because I don't trust myself to keep all layers even since so little of the piping will be showing. I guess it's another case of control for me. The piping is now machine basted in place and we'll see how evenly I can get that binding sewn over it.
6 comments:
Believe it or not, the "strip-pieced flange style binding" is not only easy but it miters beautifully --- both at the ends and at the corners . Even better, this one you also sew from the front, stitching in the ditch of the seam between the flange and the binding.
Jenny Doan of Missouri Star and Donna Jordan of Jordan Fabrics both have You Tube videos demoing the technique:
https://youtu.be/EB0rc76kVV4
https://youtu.be/HAQWwwAa2K0
I love to machine bind and have used this technique a few times and really like it!
I like a nice flange & learned to make them from our friend RT. She knows about all things 'flange'. Your piping looks good against the border fabric. Have a good week & happy sewing! Jan in WY
Thanks for your input Vivian. I was hoping someone would share their experience. I will go check out those videos. Just couldn't quite envision in my head how those corners would work and didn't want to take the time to do a sample. Never occurred to me to check youtube!
Oh sure - RT, Jan, I should have known - lol! I don't think she's back in town quite yet though or I could have consulted. :-) I do really like the way those fabrics in the piping look. They would even make a good binding if this were a smaller quilt. I tried going back in my own blog archives because I was sure I'd blogged about how I did piping but could only find ones where I'd couched decorative thread in the binding seam to make a faux piping. And I know at some point I stopped putting full mitered bindings on my wall quilts, opting instead with a single fold binding lapping at the corners like the piping. Ah well, I've committed to a method and we'll see how things go with the next step.
Well I too call it a flange (no matter the width) if it’s not filled…..but who cares what it’s called….the addition can really ramp up the quilts appearance. Like you….I’d rather opt for control than quick…..I hand baste my flange to the quilt and then do the binding….always hand sew to the backing. If any of the basting shows when it’s complete the hand basting is easy to remove.
Mary, you confirm my sense that to call it a piping it should be filled and I even have a special foot for sewing the folded fabric over cording, I remembered afterwards. I think I even used it once, but for this, that was more work than I wanted to mess with. I admire your hand basting it in place because yes, I worried about sewing too close to the final stitching line and having to rip out stitches that weren't meant to be seen, but of course, if hand basted, they would be simple to pull out. So true that whether flange or piping it DOES add a zing to the quilt.
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