Winding your Binding

[Sara-S]

You’ve made the binding for your quilt. It’s now one continuous strip, several meters long.  Do you wind it around something, to keep it neat?

What do you use?

[Renegade Sewist]

You’ve made the binding for your quilt. It’s now one continuous strip, several meters long.  Do you wind it around something, to keep it neat?

What do you use?

@Sara-S , mine is yards long, wink wink  ,but that was sweet to list it as meters for our friends. I usually make the binding early on in the process of making a quilt so keeping it tidy is very important. And other times I just make binding to have at the ready.

After making the long strip it gets pressed, ready to use, then I apparently fold it in half once or twice, depends on the length. Then it gets folded onto itself, between 6" to 10". Then I usually use string or heavy thread to gently tie it in one or two places.

When I actually sew the binding on it happens in one go so I just let it unfurl.

* I had to go look at my bindings. Still haven't sewn in eons.

[BrendaP]

Well I managed to make a couple of metres too much for the scappy quilt!  I pressed all the seams open and the excess is just folded and tossed into the pink scraps box.  I don't press the fold down the centre, just fold it in half as I pin it to the edge of the trimmed quilt, sew at 1/4 inch, fold it around the edge and hand sew wherever the fold is to the line of machine stitching.

[HenriettaMaria]

When it comes to metres and yards, most Brits are bilingual due to our cockamamy mixed systems of measurement.  So we buy fabric in metres but our road signs give distances in miles or, particularly on very local/tourist signs, yards.  The only things I can't convert on the fly are stones/kg (1st = 14lb), miles/kilometres and celcius/fahrenheit.  I spent my primary school years (5 - 12) doing imperial calculations and coverting £sd to halfpennies or vice versa and my secondary school years (12 - 18) learning the metric/decimal system, by which time we'd decimalised our money too.

DS on the other hand thinks imperial measurements are archaic, but then he thinks that about taking lecture notes on paper too!

As for binding, although I haven't made a great deal in my time, I have made some and generally wind it round a piece of card to keep it neat.

[Tamnymore]

And when 'new money' came in @HenriettaMaria schools made a big thing about being able to convert from pound, shillings and pence to the new decimal currency but of course it didn't matter after a few weeks - we all got used to it quickly. I remember my poster for a project about the change to decimalisation read: 'The end is nigh. Repence!'

[Bodgeitandscarper]

Whispers - it's metres, not meters over here 
And I still often ask for two yards of fabric 

[Ploshkin]

@Sara-S if I cut and join my binding ahead of time I wind it onto a stiff piece of card to keep it tidy.

[Iminei]

I wind my binding around whatever ruler is handy at the time.



I keep it on the ruler, in my lap as I machine sew the binding on ... OOOhh Wot A rebel!!!

[HenriettaMaria]

And when 'new money' came in @HenriettaMaria schools made a big thing about being able to convert from pound, shillings and pence to the new decimal currency but of course it didn't matter after a few weeks - we all got used to it quickly. I remember my poster for a project about the change to decimalisation read: 'The end is nigh. Repence!'

During the late 1990's I worked in Wealdstone in north London and in the main street was a fruit and veg stall that I would frequent for a bit of vitamin C.  One day I bought a bag of apples and the vendor said "seven bob", to which I, without thinking, replied, "Thirty five pence"!  Seven shillings still sounds so much more than 35p.

[Sara-S]

This most recent length of binding got wound around a cord holder meant for electrical extension cords like These

[Renegade Sewist]

Whispers - it's metres, not meters over here 
And I still often ask for two yards of fabric 

@Bodgeitandscarper I thought that but was too lazy or tired to double check. 

[William]

Whether meters, metres or yards i usually wind it around a used, but clean! toilet paper roll. If it is alot then i use a paper towel roll from the kitchen...

[Bjay]

I keep a couple of foil centre (Waitrose are quite sturdy) for wrapping edging or borders and keeping them tidy

[Sara-S]

I had made some very wide binding that I had wound around that electrical cord keeper.  Turns out that I made several yards (meters/metres) more than I needed.  So I unfolded it & pressed it flat.  I had enough to make a border for all 4 sides of one Morning star block & 2 sides of another one.