No Scrap Left Behind…Binding

Here’s a way to use up every last scrap strip, no matter how wide it is! I made another batch of baby quilts with random odds and ends I had leftover from other projects.

I have the hardest time throwing away odd-sized strips...you know the ones left at the end of your yardage once you’ve cut all your 2½” strips (or whatever size you cut). There’s always something left over. Most of the time, it’s only about 1½” - 2”… not really enough to do anything with, right :) Well, let's just sew them all together and see what happens!

I laid out all those random-sized strips in the colors I like. The strips are anywhere from 1½” - 2¼” wide.

I used the 45-degree line on my ruler to trim the selvages off the right end of each strip. This way, I could stagger the ends when I sewed them together, making the whole strip set at a 45-degree angle at the right end. Notice how I used the little ¼” dog ear at the end of each strip, so when I sewed my ¼” seam, the ends came out even.

I turned my stitch length down to 2.0. This way, the seams won’t come apart when I cut my binding strips from the strip set.

Here, the strip set is all sewn together. I pressed the seams all in one direction.

Now, for the cutting. I laid the ruler along the angled end. I also lined up the 45-degree line with one of the seams to help keep my angle straight.

I cut a whole pile of 2½” strips from the strip set.

Once all the strips were cut, I sewed them end to end as seen here. The ends are already angled, so you just have to stagger them slightly, and they will line up perfectly once sewn.

I made one long strip and pressed it in half lengthwise.

I always double-machine bind, so I sewed the binding to the back of the quilt, then wrapped it around to the front and topstitched it down. See my full binding tutorial here for more on that process.

Once I got the binding sewn all the way around and came to attach the two ends, I overlapped the strips to see how many “links” to remove.

Here you can see what I took off from each end to remove as much bulk as possible. I tucked the pink end into the green end and wrapped it over the top, snuggly stitching the remaining binding into place to secure both ends together and to the quilt.

I wrapped the binding around to the front of the quilt, topstitched it down, and voila!! Done!

Now, that’s a satisfying use of scraps :) I hope you’ll give it a try!

Happy Sunday, everyone,

Krista

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