Some quilters use bias tape for binding.

Others use it for applique or narrow curved strips to sew between larger patches of fabric.

And when you can make your own bias tape, your finished quilt has a better chance of being exactly how you want it to look.

For years I avoided making my own bias tape – thinking it would be just “too much trouble.”

It turns out that I was wrong – making it is easy and it doesn’t take any special tools, although it is easier if you have a bias tape maker.

To see how to make your own bias tape, visit:

http://www.how-to-quilt.com/articles/6097-making-bias-tape.php

Bias Tape Maker

The perfect doll for this outfit has reddish-brown hair; she is “Cyndi Sue” from Harmony Club Dolls.

I love this “striped tank and walking shorts” in spite of all the problems I had putting it together. The pattern comes from Love to Dress Up 18″ Doll Clothes by Lorine Mason. The author creates adorable designs but her pattern pieces have lots of problems. Some of them I discuss in a previous blog entry.

This top is adorable but the armholes are a bit tight, and I could barely close the back because it’s too small. The back of this top is supposed to overlap in the back with a mock button closure (over snaps), but the left and right sides barely meet. I was able to close the back by extending velcro past the center line. I now see that the author/designer’s pattern drawings do not match the photos of her finished items. Her finished top—represented on page 10—has creases in the back caused by the tight fit of her own representation.

The back of this top has a triangle cut out at the bottom that reveals the small of the back. The biggest issue here is that these 18-inch dolls have no “small of the back” per se. They have chunky backs that look best covered.

This top has a cute horizontal stripes section that crosses above the waist. These three pieces (the top, mid-section, and bottom) did not fit properly together. I had to re-cut these sections before hemming the back.

These shorts are simple to make. A casing in the top houses the elastic for the waist. I took three quarters of an inch or so off the bottom of the shorts. I think that mine look much better than the ones in the book.

The best feature of this outfit is the bias tape around the neck, arm holes and legs of the shorts. Making bias tape is easier than you might think, and now I want to use it for everything.

Make your own bias tape with these easy instructions: After cutting bias strips and stitching them into one long strip (per pattern), fold the tape in half lengthwise (wrong sides together) and iron a nice crease down the middle.

Then open the tape and fold each edge to meet the middle crease and iron again. Fold in half again:

Here’s the secret to making bias tape work for you. When you do the second fold (above), make sure that one of the folds is slightly larger than the other. When you attach the bias tape to the garment by top-stitching the smaller side of the tape, it will be sure to catch the wrong side of the tape inside of the garment. In other words, when the bias tape is folded in half (above), you should be able to see a tiny bit of the other side.

I criticize the fit of this top because I don’t want you to blame yourself when it is the pattern that is cut incorrectly. I want you to succeed at creating doll clothes. I’ve had other problems with books by this author. I’ve contacted her for advice but got no response. Her designs are adorable, but many of her pattern pieces are drawn incorrectly.

I do want to say that this is far from a tutorial, so if you’re up to learning the ins and outs of bias-tape making, I highly recommended this site. It’s extremely informative and uses lots of photographs with it’s step-by-step instructions.

Setting up in a new apartment always feels like a new start, so spurred on by that, I’ve come up with a way of making at least some of my hoarded materials turn useful. I’m sure I’m not the only one with scraps of fabric left over after sewing projects – too big to throw away (too beautiful!), but too small to be put to use in a garment. Some people make small things; pincushions, coin-purses, soft toys – but I mostly make garments, and these pieces aren’t even large enough for pockets. I finally realized the perfect use for these scraps was to make bias tape!

I make my bias tape by measuring the same amount (say, 3 inches) along two sides of a triangle – along the weft and the warp grain. Connecting those two points gives me the bias, and then I can just use my ruler to draw new diagonal marks. This works well on oddly shaped scrappy pieces, but I’ve found that my lines can get a little skewed after four or five repeats – best to double-check my lines every so often!

One trick to getting perfectly aligned seams when joining pieces is to make sure the short ends are at a 45 degree angle to the long ends, which they will be if they follow the grainlines to begin with. Sometimes it’s easier to trim the scrap piece of fabric first. The other trick is to mark the seam allowance, and offset the two pieces so that it’s the stitching line goes edge to edge on both layers.

It’s kind of amazing how many yards of bias tape you can get out of a fat quarter sized scrap (or smaller!) of fabric.

I think I’ve been fooling myself with my mindset of “this can be useful somehow!”. Sure, most of the things we having lying in drawers and boxes can be useful, but are they useful to us – in the way that we use things? Like I mentioned, I don’t really sew or make small things, so smallish scraps of fabric don’t hold any value to me, at least not in how I craft. So while someone else might have found a million things to make with my scraps, I didn’t. By making these remnants into bias-tape, I’ve turned them into something I will actually use  – something that makes sense with the kinds of things I craft. And that is the whole point, isn’t it?

And what will I use my bias tape for? I took a workshop a while back where I learned lots of finishing techniques, like hong-kong hemming, bound seams, and decorative uses. Quilts can be finished with some home-made bias tape; use it for a decorative piping touch,  and my favorite, a really nice edge finishing from Tasia of sewaholic.