Prequilted Fabric Session 5: Placemat Project

Now we're going to make a simple placemat. And this is a good practice piece for learning how to apply binding. A typical placemat is approximately 18 by 14. Sometimes they'll be as long as 20, so you've got a little bit of variance in there. But we're going to cut ours at 18 by 14 inches.

We need to double-check the amount of binding, so I've done the math for you. We have two sides at 18 inches, which equals 36. And then we're going to have two straight sides, two vertical sides at 14 inches each, which is 28 inches. So you add 36 plus 28, and then you need 10 inches to make the miter on each corner and to have some to work with what we call the tails, and that's just kind of some extra insurance. So we need a total of 74 inches of straight grain binding.

This is the formula that you use for any quilt, any rectangular quilt or square quilt out there or any geometric quilt other than, let's say, one with circles. Those are handled a little bit differently. But that's how you know how much binding you need to prepare. We have more than enough because each of our strips were 44 inches. We put two strips together, so we're well over 80 inches.

More than enough. So the first thing we're going to do is cut our placemat. Now, I still have the fabric doubled. It comes as 44 inches. So when we cut this, we may as well cut two 'cause very rarely do you just buy a placemat for one.

So we'll have a spare ready to go. I wanna square it up, so I'm going to come across and just cut off this little edge and make sure that my placemat is nice and square. When you're working with the pre-quilted fabric, especially when you're cutting through multiple layers, I highly recommend two things. Number one, have a new blade in, which mine is getting a bit on the dull side. I should follow my own advice.

But I do recommend a new blade. The other thing I find works very well is instead of using a 45-inch rotary cutter, I love my 60-inch. That is my workhorse. It is my go-to rotary cutter. Unfortunately, I'm in the process of moving, and my rotary cutter other than this one is in storage.

This is my travel one. So I feel like I'm really having to make do. But the 60-inch cuts like butter, and because it's thicker, it has no trouble getting through multiple layers. This one, you can see that the layers are starting to get, oh, at least halfway to the edge of the center wheel. And in a later project where I need to cut multiple layers, you're gonna see me struggle a little bit.

So keep in mind, 60-inch rotary cutter if you don't already have one. I absolutely love mine. All right, so we want to go 18 inches long. Since I started on one, that's gonna put me at 19. Everything's nice and square.

Going to cut. All right. Now, if you notice on the pre-quilted fabric, the batting is hanging out, and that is very, very typical. Sometimes you'll even see where the backing fabric is larger than the front-facing fabric. And if you do your own squares of fabric that way, that's just fine.

It's very typical because that's how things shrink while they're quilting. And usually we go ahead and allow for that excess. Usually when I have people bring me their quilt top, I always ask for extra batting and backing fabric, just because of quilt shrinkage. Now, I cut that... There's my 18, so now I need to cut the 14.

I actually should've probably cut that the other direction. Oh well, it still works. And thankfully it's a non-directional print. All right, so there is a cut placemat, actually two of them, but we are going to just set one aside for now. Whoops.

And I did not cut the center. All right, so we're going to cut right up the center. Then we will have two placemats. So here we go, I'm getting ready to cut this in half because I didn't do it earlier. And as I'm sitting here looking at my rotary cutter, I just realized I was recommending a 60-inch rotary cutter to you folks.

So you know how big that rotary cutter would be? I meant to say a 60-millimeter rotary cutter, and this indeed a 45-millimeter rotary cutter, so I apologize for that slip of the tongue. Let's see if we can get back on track here. All right, now we have two distinct placemats, one of which we'll use, the other of which we will set aside for the time being. All right, always close your rotary cutter.

You never know when it might fall off the table and cut your foot or somebody else. Now, first thing, you have reversible fabric, so you need to decide which is your right side, which is your wrong side. Typically, binding is applied to the right side of the fabric. It is sewed on, and it folds over, encases the fabric, and comes onto the back side where it's hand-stitched. That's lovely if you have time for hand-stitching.

And considering these are simply pre-quilted fabric, they are not an heirloom placemat, I'm going to show you a way to do machine binding start to finish. And I do majority of my quilts this way, everything except for show quilts or heirloom quilting. All right, you want to leave a good tail. Probably on something this size, let's leave about five inches, right? Come on over to the machine.

Line it up. And you're going to do a 1/4 of an inch seam. You do a regular stitch. And I do not want you ever to start in the corner. Always start in the middle somewhere of a seam, preferably the lower left or even on the vertical portion, the lower left works very well because that's not where your eye typically travels to first.

So we wanna minimize the starting and ending point. So we go ahead, and we start sewing. Binding is nowhere near as difficult as it seems. I know I was petrified of it when I first started quilting, and now do it in my sleep. All right, you're going the come up to within 1/4 of an inch.

And most quilting feet will have a little mark 1/4 of an inch out. And when you reach that point, put your needle down. You're going to pivot, and you're going to come 45 degrees. We're going to sew off into the corner. All right, do not pull it all the way out, and certainly do not cut the thread.

So you see how we pivoted into the corner? You're going to take your long piece of binding, and you're going to bring it straight back. What you want to do is have a nice miter, 45-degree miter across the corner. And sometimes it helps if you have a pin if you don't have enough hands. I want you to now fold the binding back on top of itself.

Now, here's the part that most quilters get in a hurry or don't realize this little tip. We had the miter there. We want to make sure that this top piece of binding lines up exactly on top of that line there, so it doubles back on itself. We don't want it going beyond this edge. We want it even with that edge, and we want it perfectly even with this edge.

And it is worth futzing with it a little bit to get it right. Right now if you look, you can see that mine is off just a little. It's pushed under. That is not what I want. So again, we're going to come straight back.

We're going to come down. And this is where the pin is kind of nice. It helps you line it up. I've got those two lined up. Almost have that one.

For some reason, it's not cooperating with me. There we go, all lined up nice and even. All right, now, yes, that's a lot of work for a placemat, but in the end, it'll be worth it because this is something people will see while they're eating dinner. All right, you're gonna come down here. Stitched within 1/4 of an inch.

Pivot 45 degrees. Sew off into the corner. All right, so now we are going to make the turn, just like we did on the last corner. You want to align all of the edges. Make sure they're perfectly aligned, that you have a good 45-degree turn there.

My fingers don't want to work there. Okay. And continue sewing. And we're going to repeat that process on the remaining two corners. And while we do that, you can go take a break, and when we come back, I will show you how to finish up the ends here and then turn it and do your topstitching.

All right, we've come around the corner, and I want to leave another tail so that we have some space to work with in here, so let's just cut this right here. And I'm going to show you how to finish this. Ideally, I like even more space than this to work with. And I'll be honest, I shouldn't show you this, but I will. Sometimes if I need a little more room, I put my thumb there and just lift up so I don't distort my fabric and just give myself an extra inch or two.

I know you could neatly cut it with the rippers, but this work. Okay, so now what I wanna do is lay this, the original end flat. The new end coming around we need to marry up. This is awfully close. I don't have a lot of room to turn.

So what I want to do is I'm going to bring this down, and I am going to trim my tail back a little bit. I'm gonna take off one side and give it back on the other. So let's take off two inches here. It's a little tougher when you're working on something small like a placemat. This finish is a very professional finish.

You can just overlap the tails. A lot of people will do that. But what happens is you have to fold it in, and then you've got your other tail in here, and then you're lapping it over. And it's very obvious that that is the end of your binding. A vertical line just draws the eye right to it.

Also, if we have within here, and I'm having a hard time finding it. There it is. Here's my original seam where I joined my pieces together, and that is nowhere near as noticeable because it's on the diagonal. And if I make this one on the diagonal, you won't know which was the start and stop point and which was a midpoint. So that's why I want to teach you the continuous method of finishing it.

All right, so with my binding there, lay it flat. I'm just going to inch this one up and literally kiss that one. At that point, finger press it so that it looks like this, right? Take it off. Get your little ruler.

Get your rotary cutter. Measure six times, cut once, all right? What you're going to measure is the width of the binding. And if you remember, we have a 2 1/4-inch binding, so we want to measure out 2 1/4 inches, and then we are going to add another 1/2 of an inch to that. So now I have 2 3/4 inches.

That's where I want to cut it. That extra 1/2 inch is to allow for the seam allowances when I seam this. Here's where everybody gets confused, right? It's laying over. You are going to open up the one binding and turn it a half turn to the left.

Let me demonstrate that again. Open it up. Half a turn to the left, right? The other one stays flat. And you are going to...

You have to fight with it a little bit. Overlap them so you have approximately 1/4 of an inch on this side and on that side. That was your seam allowances and some extra to make sure it all lines up. And then pin it. And you are going to be sewing from the upper left to the lower right.

Now, we have a little test to make sure we did it correctly. Just let it fall back, and it should line up like it's going to lay down nice and flat. That's how you know it's right. If you did more than a half turn or if you turn in the wrong direction, it will be twisted. So that's your ticket there.

All right, come on over to the sewing machine with it. And it's much easier, believe it or not, on a big quilt because you'll probably have a minimum of 10, maybe even 15 inches of space to play with. On this placemat, we're really pushing it to get 10 inches. You're going to have to make sure that everything is lined up as square as you can. Oops, and I do not like leaving a rotary cutter open.

And, yes, it does take a little bit of maneuvering and finagling with it, fighting with it even, but it's worth it. Okay, I've got that nice and flat. Turn it so we can get in the corner. Again, just like you joined those other binding strips, that's all you're gonna be doing, corner to corner. Don't sew over the pin.

Hold it nice and steady. Aim for the corner. Pull it out. And before you trim it, because at this point you can fix it if there's a problem, go ahead and make sure that it's going to lay flat. Sometimes we get off just a little bit, and you'll have too much fabric, you may wanna go back and fix it.

That's going to lay down just right. So again, we have to kind of play with it. You're going to take your smaller ruler. You won't get the big one in there. Lay it on the 1/4-inch line on the seam, directly on the seam.

Get your rotary cutter and trim it to 1/4 of an inch. Also trim off your two dog ears, just like you did when you made the binding. Take it over to the iron. We're gonna do two things at the iron. The first thing I want to do, I want to press the seam open so that we distribute the weight.

The second thing I want to do is recrease it so that it's nice and even. And in giving it just a shot of steam, if there's any excess fabric in there, it will ease in and lay nice and flat. And you can see that that is laying as flat as can be, and you can't tell the difference between the seam over here and the one over here. It's just nice and neat. Come back to the sewing machine.

Line up your stitches. And complete the 1/4-inch seam. All right, now, sometimes we see a little bubble will happen. This isn't too often, but every once in awhile, you might get just a little bubble in there. If it's only on one side of the binding, don't sweat the small stuff.

Nobody's ever gonna see it, and we can probably even iron it out a little bit. If it's bigger than that or if it's on this side, stop, nip out those stitches, and do it correctly. It's worth the time to fix it. All right, back to the ironing board. Now we're going to give a press, and what I'm doing is gently persuading my binding toward the outer edge, but I'm not working the corners yet.

All I wanna do is just get the bulk of it over. This is the same thing you would do regardless of the size of your quilt. Process is exactly the same. All right, once I have that where I can work with it, come on over, pick a starting point, and bring your corners in. Now, typically, as you look at the back...

I'm going to move this ironing board over just a little bit. As you look at the back, you can see that this corner, the right side, the top side is folding over the left. When you come to the opposite side, the one we're working on, we want it to be left, or rather right first with left following. So it's just the opposite, right? So I'll show you what I mean.

So in this case, I'm going to fold this in first. And your binding, I usually will just put a little pin to get it started. You wanna make sure that you're covering the stitching. And where that comes in, now you're going to fold it up. And sometimes it helps if you come over here and just start the edge a little bit, especially on smaller projects, just enough to get it going.

The corners are the worst. Once you get the corners, you're home free. Okay. There we go. Now, I don't necessarily pin my entire binding.

It's up to you. Some people will pin every inch. Some people will pin just every so often. Some people like to use clips. It's totally your choice.

I am fanatical about pinning in the corner and getting that nice, and then the rest of it I can kind of pull over as I sew. Occasionally if I have a finicky binding, like this one is deciding to be, I will just give a couple of extra little pins. I continue on in the same manner. I'm gonna do one more corner for you. And...

Just enough to get it over. And if one way doesn't want to work, try the opposite way. Sometimes you just really have to play with the corners. The other problem is if you have a stretchy fabric, not a nice firm fabric. You haven't bought, for whatever reason, a high-quality fabric.

Maybe you paid a good price for it, but it's not necessarily a high-quality piece of fabric that has a lot of stretch to it. You may be fighting it a little more. This fabric seems to be very stretchy, and I'm not real pleased, to be honest, with how the corners are going in. So in that case, I just have to play with it a little bit more to make the miter. Yeah, that one went much better.

Sometimes, like I said, you just have to play with it a little bit until you get that nicely mitered 45-degree corner. As you can see, this one is rolling in this direction, and this one is rolling in the opposite direction. So I'm gonna go ahead and finish pinning the rest of this. Then we'll come back and stitch it down so you can see how to finish your binding. Because this binding was acting a little finicky on me, I went ahead and pinned a little more than what I usually do, but now we're ready to topstitch it.

And, oh, before I do, I wanna show you a fun foot that you probably need to get for your quilting. Tools of the trade are always important. The right tool for the job makes all the difference. Just ask your husband why he has so many different saws, and he'll tell you, because he needs the right tool for the job, and there's all different saws for all different jobs. Same thing with your foot.

There's no such thing as one foot fits all on a sewing machine. This is called a narrow edge foot. And on the narrow edge foot, if you notice, there is a little protrusion, whoops, maybe you can see it better here, on the back that comes up and in front of the machine. You're going to guide this just to the inside on the binding and follow that little guide. It's kind of like the follow me trucks at the airport that the airplanes follow.

If you follow this little line, your needle is right behind, and it will go where it needs to go. You do not need to watch the needle. In this case, all you need to watch is the leading edge of your narrow edge foot. This foot is wonderful for quilting, for applying your binding. It's fabulous for stitch in the ditch quilting.

And I also like it for garment construction for doing the very edge of collars where you do the topstitching right before you fall off the edge into the abyss. It's wonderful for doing that little part. So this is a very worthwhile tool to have that you will use over and over for many different uses. So let's go ahead and swap our feet for that one. Another foot that you can use is an open toe foot.

Sometimes I find if I just have a clear vision of what I'm doing, I can see better and guide my needle along. There are several different options for bindings, and it's a matter of finding what works best for you and what you're most comfortable with. All right, again, I'm going to pick a corner and pretend it's my lower left. I'm going to set up my machine. And just by moving my needle over just a click or two, it really makes it that between my tool and positioning my needle, I can get that needle right on the very, very edge, right?

So here we go. We're just sewing with a regular stitch. You're not gonna be sewing fast, but you will be sewing at a reasonable pace. Remember to take your pins out. You don't want to sew over them.

And I'm coming right up next to that pin, but I'm not sewing over it. I'm right on top of it, but I'm going to slip it out so I can get right in the corner of that 45-degree angle where the miter is. And I also like to do it with the needle down. As you can see as I'm sewing here, you can see how we're right on that edge, and it just gives a beautiful, beautiful finish. For something like placemats that are gonna get washed and used and abused, the machine finish is the way to go.

I use this a lot on utility quilts, what we call football quilts or drag-around quilts for babies. I use 'em on wall hangings, pot holders, you name it. The key is, the purists say all bindings should be hand-stitched, but that's no longer true. Even in shows, in certain shows, as long as a binding is finished well, it does not necessarily have to be finished by hand. And I've seen some very creative bindings over the years that certainly did not resemble your traditional binding, and they were very well-received because they were done well.

Sometimes if I see a little thread poking out, I can tuck it back in. Sometimes you just have to wait till you're done and go ahead and trim them. As you can see, I am not pulling on this at all. I'm simply guiding it and letting the machine do the work. And that's how it should be any time you're sewing.

There should be no need to pull. The more you pull, the more you are causing needle deflection, possibly bending the needle, which can lead to skipped stitches and a host of other problems. Today's machines are designed for them to do the work and you to just relax and enjoy the sewing process. So don't fight with your sewing machine. I see too many people of the persuasion that we have to pull everything through our sewing machines, and it's just not true.

Your life is a lot easier when you let the machine do the labor, and your results will be better too. Now, the process for finishing, as I've showed you, if you want to do a machine finish, is going to be the exact same whether you're doing the straight grain binding or if you do a continuous bias binding. Then when you get to the end, you may want to tie off or backstitch just a couple of stitches, just enough to hold it. This point, I would go through. There's a few stray threads here that need to be cleaned up, and you want to give it a final press.

But basically you can see there is our finished product, and I think now you've got the general concept of How to do a nice straight-edged binding.