Binding a quilt using the fleece backing

Veteran's Quilt

48" x 60"

My second veteran's quilt is done! It started with some half square triangles that I cut from leftover fabrics from this quilt. I used the rest of the off white fabrics for the sashing and added the very old dark blue print to finish it off. Once I finished the top I realized that I didn't have enough of any of the fabrics to do the binding. Hmmmmm...

Then I remembered someone at my quilt guild showing a veteran's quilt that had fleece as the backing AND the binding. Off I headed to Hobby Lobby with my 40% coupon and returned with a large piece of navy blue fleece. Now this isn't a quilt that's going to win any awards but it's a great quilt for keeping someone warm and comfortable and I think the fleece binding is perfectly acceptable for donation and comfort quilts....or blankies.

I wanted to show you how I did this and leave a record so that I will have my own instructions the next time I need them.

It all starts with the quilting. Normally I use the margins around the quilt to practice quilting or to test tension. With this quilt I am using the backing as the binding so I had to be careful to keep all of my stitching on the quilt. Also with this quilt I added a thin polyester layer of batting. I only did that so that the dark blue backing would not show through the light patches of the top. So my first step was to trim the batting to the edge of the quilt top. My applique scissors were ideal for this task because they help me avoid clipping into the fleece.

Trim the fleece to be 1/2" - 1" beyond the edge of the top. This will be folded to the front so set the width according to how much you want to show on the front of the quilt. I wanted to have a full inch on the front of my quilt.

On the long sides of the quilt clip into the fleece straight at each edge of the top.

Fold the fleece to the front and sew the two long edges. I used a zig zag stitch set at 4.0 width and 3.0 length. Fleece doesn't fray so you do not need to turn under any raw edges. The zig zag stitch will hold it perfectly and you will not have the added bulk of a turned under edge.

(I did this stitching in contrast thread for the photograph. The finished quilt is done in dark blue thread.)

I wanted my corners mitered to avoid bulk. Cut the for remaining corners on a diagonal to create the miter.

Fold the edge over and stitch from the outside corner, down the mitered edge and along the long edge of the fleece. On the miter be sure to catch all fo the raw edges. I actually started stitching about half way into the miter then to the outer corner and then back to the insude corner. This made the outside corner more secure and when done in matching thread you can't see the extra stitches.

The whole binding took about 20 minutes start to finish and that's yet another reason to use this technique for a comfort quilt.