No-Piece Geometric Quilt Part Two

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Hey guys! It’s Alexis back with part two of my No-Piece Geometric Quilt Tutorial (be sure to go check out part one here).

The great thing about this quilt is that it works up fairly quickly (compared to a traditional quilt) because there is no piecing involved! The top and bottom are both flat sheets, which means you can get to quilting right away, but quilting in triangle and zig zag patterns still gives the quilt lots of pattern and texture.

geometric quiltWhen we left off at the end of part one, the quilting was done and it was time to finish off the quilt with a contrasting binding.

From here, the first step is to even out the edges of the quilt and square up the corners using a rotary cutter and cutting mat.

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Next, it is time to make the binding. I used about a yard of a cotton broadcloth in a light peach color. To start off, you will need to cut the fabric perpendicular to the selvedge edge into strips 2 1/4 inches wide. Most cotton quilting fabric is 42″ wide, so each strip will give you about 40 useable inches. To determine how many strips you need for your binding, divide the perimeter of the quilt by 40. For my quilt, I needed 10 strips.

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When all the strips are cut, it is time to join the strips together into one long strip. To do this, put the ends of two strips together at a right angle with right sides together and stitch from corner to corner to join the strips at an angle. Keep doing this until all your strips are joined into one long chain.

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Trim the corners off where the strips are joined leaving 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Press each of the seams open to create one long strip of fabric, and then press the entire strip in half lengthwise.

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This will give you a nice long piece of binding. There is just one last step before we can attach it to the binding. Take one end of your strip, open it up so it is flat, and cut off the end at a 90 degree angle. Then fold the binding closed again along the lengthwise crease.

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Now it is time to attach the binding to the quilt! Start in the middle of one of the sides of the quilt and leave about six inches of binding unattached (the angled end of the binding). Place the binding so the open edge lines up with the edge of the quilt and the folded edge points to the middle of the quilt.

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Using matching thread, stitch the binding to the quilt at exactly 1/4 inch from the quilt edge. (It is really important that the binding be exactly 1/4 inch from the edge to make the following steps go smoothly!)

When you get to a corner, stop 1/4 inch from the edge, turn the quilt 90 degrees, and stitch off the edge.

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The turn the quilt and lay the open edge of the binding along the next side of the quilt. The corner should kind of stand up in the middle. Flatten it down, and begin stitching along the next edge exactly 1/4 inch from the edge of the quilt. Keep going until you get back to where you started. Stop stitching about 10-12 inches away from where you started.

Now we will join the two ends of the binding together so you won’t be able to tell where it stopped and started! First, trim off any excess binding, leaving a few inches of overlap between the two ends. Open up the binding and lay the angled end over the top of the straight end.

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Mark the edge of the angled end on the straight end. Then trim the straight end 1/2 inch from your mark. Both ends will now be cut at an angle and this should give you a perfect 1/4 inch seam allowance.

With right sides together (be careful not to twist the binding!), stitch the two ends together leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance (see the image below).

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Press open the seam allowance (a finger press should work just fine), clip off the corners, and fold the binding back along the lengthwise crease.

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Going back to where you stopped stitching, and finish stitching on the binding 1/4 inch from the edge of the quilt.

Now that the binding is completely attached all around the front of the quilt, it is time to wrap the binding around the edge and attach it to the back. You could do this by hand to keep the stitches invisible, but I just used my machine to attach the binding with a top stitch in a thread that matches the binding color.

Fold the binding over the edge of the quilt. You may want to pin it in place before you quilt, but I just kind of wrapped it around as I stitched. With the back of the quilt facing up, stitch the binding down 1/4 inch from the edge of the quilt.

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When you get to the corner, the binding should easily fold into a pretty mitered corner. With this binding method, both the back and the front will have nice mitered corners.

Just keep stitching all the way around the edge of the quilt, and – Voila! – all done! Yay!  A custom king-size quilt made on your home sewing machine. It’s totally doable, guys!

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This quilt has a new home on our bed. It is lightweight and perfect for summers in Vegas.

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It’s a work in progress, but I’m happy with how it is coming along! You can see how I made the crocheted “XO” pillows here and the watercolor pillow herequilt12