Years ago when I bound a quilt I would overlap my corners. My Mom told me (we're talking about the 1990's) I needed to up my game and miter my corners. I found a plastic guide for making a machine sewn mitered corner. It came with instructions and it took me an hour and a half to sew the first corner! I can now sew all four corners in a half hour. Yes, thank goodness, I got quicker at it! LOL!!! It makes such a beautiful corner so here is how I do it.
First I sew my binding strips on each side of the quilt, sewing to 1/4" from the corners. In this example I had cut my binding 3" wide, but any size will work. It is a bit harder the narrower the binding gets. I don't measure or mark my 1/4" from the corner. I just go for it.
Sometimes I get the stitching just right, but most of the time I get close then need to fix it. This picture shows that the stitching doesn't come to the corner.
What I do to correct this is to tear out a few stitches, get the binding strips going the correct direction and restitch each side separately from the back side. This is what is needs to look like.
Next flip the quilt back over to the front and now it is time to make the stitching line for the miter. 1. center the measuring device between the stitching line and the edge of the binding
2. make sure the edge of your measuring device meets up with the end of the stitching.
Here is my corner marking device that I have had for years. I don't think you can buy these anymore.
but you can mark it just as easy with a small square ruler. The diagonal line needs to be parallel to the edge of the binding and seam line, and I make sure that the measurement at the corner is the same on both sides of the diagonal line. Make sure the ruler is just to the end of the stitching line.
Draw a line around the end of the ruler or tool. This is your stitching line.
With the quilt to your left, take the east west side and fold back the quilt and seam allowances. I kind of hand press the right side along the binding stitching line.
Then take the north south side of the quilt and fold it over to the east west side to align the bindings. You will make a triangle shape with the quilt.
Coax the seam allowances away from the binding and pin the corner. I also take a peak under the top binding to make sure the bottom binding is nice and flat.
Wrestle this under the sewing machine foot and sew from the inner corner to the outer edge. I definitely backstitch and when I am about halfway to the point of the miter, I change my stitch length to 1.5. Here is the sewn miter.
Trim the excess fabric. Yes this is kind of scary but you can't have to much fabric or the corner won't turn nicely. Now you can understand why you have to switch to a smaller stitch length.
Now that the sewing is done I trim the quilt, press the binding so it is nice and crisp at the sewing line, then using a pointy tool push out the corner. See what a nice corner you get?
Again, the first time you do this you will be asking yourself "why did I think this was a good idea", but after some practice you will get much faster at it.
The original direction had you line up the binding first then mark the corner. That was much harder to line up to mark the corner dealing with all those layers of batting. I figure out to mark the miter before folding; it is much easier to get an accurate corner. Let me know if you have any questions!
