{photo of floral bias tape trim by uklassinus}
As mentioned previously here, bias tape is pretty, useful, and adds a unique touch to garments. It’s also a fabulous way to use up scrap fabric from other sewing projects. After sorting through photos of bias tape for inspiration, I want to hole up in the studio and transform pieces of left over fabric into enough bias tape to reach the moon! Luckily, this tutorial simplifies the process of making bias tape by allowing you to avoid stitching each individual strip together, hence the name continuous bias tape.
If you have any questions about the why & how of bias tape or just want to see an alternate technique, check out Sarai’s tutorial, which uses a strip piecing method rather than a continuous loop. The benefit of the continuous loop method is that it’s much faster, because there’s less pinning and sewing.
Also note that I used a 10″ x 10″ square of fabric for this particular tutorial, but if you have less material to work with that’s okay, too! Just make sure you have enough fabric to cut out a perfect square.
You will need:
- 10″ x 10″ square of fabric
- a ruler
- fabric pen or chalk
- scissors
- a Clover bias tape maker in 1/2″
- thread
- a sewing machine
Step 1: Cut a 10″ x 10″ square piece of fabric, then cut it in half diagonally, along the bias.
Step 2: With right sides together, pin the two triangles together at either of the straight sides (not the diagonal side), as shown in the photo. Edgestitch the two pieces together.
Step 3: Open up the fabric pieces and press seam apart (aka bust with the iron). The fabric should be the shape of a parallelogram.
Step 4: Starting at the edge of the fabric, mark 1″ lines in washable fabric pen. These diagonal lines will be parallel to the fabric edge and will be drawn on the wrong side of the fabric. Don’t cut yet!
Step 5: With right sides together, fold the narrow tips of your parallelogram lengthwise to make a small square.
Step 6: Once folded, offset the 1st row and pin in place. Then, match up the following lines while pinning in place with right sides together. You should have a tube like shape with 1″ of fabric offset at each end. Sew a narrow 1/4″ seam. Press seam apart.
Step 7: Starting at the first offset row of drawn lines, cut until you reach the end.
Step 8: You’re almost done!! Now pull your continuous bias tape strip through your bias tape maker while pressing the folds with your iron. This should produce nearly 100″ of bias tape, depending on how accurately you mark each line in Step 4.
Yay!! Which method of making bias tape do you prefer? The continuous bias tape method (shown here) or Sarai’s strip piecing bias tape technique?
Wow that looks like a great way to do it. I’ve always liked the idea of taking a fabric and making your own binding so you could have the pattern you wanted, but the thought of sewing all the strips together rather put me off. This looks a lot easier.
OH MY GOD – you just BLEW my MIND! why Have I been wasting my TIME sewing TINY bits of fabric together WWWHHHYYY?!?!?!?!?!?!!
thx x
xG
You have perfect timing!!! I need to make some bias tape for a couple of projects and I will definitely be trying out this technique.
This is brilliant! I made bias tape for the first time last weekend for a piped edging for my Crepe, and spent so long piecing the bits together. I’ll definitely be giving this technique a try. Thank you!
This is genius! So much easier than sewing lots of fiddly little strips together and them not lining up properly!
Plus it is all slightly like a mobius strip magic trick which pleases my inner child AND mathematician!
Wow! That looks pretty easy. I’ve only made bias binding tape once, and I had to do it twice as my first one came out much too narrow. This looks super simple. I’m definitely going to have to get one of those handy bias tape maker.
If you want wider bias tape, try making the strips 1 1/2″ and experiment with different sizes of Clover bias tape makers!
GENIUS. I’m going to try that. Can’t believe how much bias tape you can get out of a small bit of fabric! Hooray!
It really is amazing how much you can make from such a small piece of fabric!
That is soooo clever! Wait – there’s such a piece of equipment as a bias tape marker? My studio investment will run and run, I can see. There’ll always be some new bit that I just have to buy… What a truly revelatory tutorial. Thank you.
It seems like there are always more sewing notions to be had…but it’s so fun collecting them!
I agree with everyone, this is a GREAT way to make bias tape. I am going to try it asap. I love the inspiration photo you chose also. Thank you for this tutorial!
Brilliant – thank you!
This is extremely helpful!
I use the continuous method, it can be a bit fiddly to line up the seams, but after that – easy-peasy!
I agree, it took me awhile to master this technique. I botched it the first few times!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sarai Mitnick and Modern Domestic, The Thrifty Stitcher. The Thrifty Stitcher said: RT @saraicat: Rachel has a great tutorial on an easier, faster way to make bias tape: http://t.co/McE85T8 #sewing [...]
I’ve been strip piecing, but have always wanted to figure out the continuous. This tutorial really cleared it up for me! I also love how you did it with so little fabric. I always felt like you needed a huge amount of fabric to get very much tape. Can’t wait to try this out!
Wow. I’ve always pieced – I had no idea there was any other way to do it. I think the explanation exploded part of my brain, but I’m definitely going to give it a try.
BTW – love the color combo in the picture at the top.
Hopefully the photos will help if you get confused. Feel free to ask any questions you may have!
I had read about making continuous bias tape before but I could never quite understand the directions – these instructions along with your photos have made it clear! Thank you!
This is amazing! What a time saver. I have read instructions on making continuous binding from a quilting magazine in the past, but it never clicked for me. I think your scaled down sample made the concept so much easier to understand. Thank you! Happy weekend sewing to all!
I’ve always made it the strip piecing method (and generally mess up sewing the strips together once or twice. I will have to try this. Do you have formula on how to figure out how much bias tape you will get from a ___ sized square?
I took this little tidbit from Sarai’s post on bias strips, hope it helps!
“First, figure out how many square inches your rectangle is by multiplying the length by the width. Now divide that number by the width of the strips you’ll be cutting. That will give you a rough approximation”
Oh, this is fantastic, thanks! I was balking finishing a project because I didn’t have any bias tape on hand, and I dread piecing together stupid little bias-cut scraps. This blew my mind and saved that skirt!
Such a helpful tutorial, I had never come across this method before. I’ll hopefully get the chance to use this soon.
Oh, this is fantastic — can’t wait to try it! What a great use for all those big scraps I can’t bear to part with…
I think this is what’s been missing for me to start making my own bias tape!
This is pretty clever for getting continuous bias out of a small piece of fabric, and the directions are wonderfully clear. My only concern is just how many seams are going to be in it because of the seam between the two triangles in addition to all the ones between the strips. I’ve used the continuous method many times before, always starting out with the parallelogram. If you have a large enough piece of fabric to start with that you’ll have half as many seams.
Just my 2 cents.
I use a combination of these methods. I use this one through step 4, then I cut with my rotary cutter and sew together. I will have to try it this way. The bias tape maker is a genius invention that I won’t do without ever again. I used it for the first time making Christmas presents and loved it. I was worried because I sometimes have problems getting perfect, straight cuts but it didn’t matter. Love this tute.
Connie
I love the continuous method. But after many, many times of doing it wrong, the one piece of your awesome tutorial I would stress is the need to OFFSET THE ROWS when pinning. Many is the time I forgot to offset and started cutting, only to cut tubes of strips – instead of the continuous loops. Great tutorial!
I think I love you! I have made bias tape so many times burning my fingers and forever cutting these little pieces of fabric…. this rocks!! Much sewing love sent your way….. handmade bias making, I am back! (too much coffee this morning, lol)
Wow, how smart! That’s making a whole lot of bias tape from a small bit of fabric!
I need to get a bias bind maker…
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[...] need binding. One of them shall be my Finished Friday post. Last month the (soon to be renamed) Collette Patterns blog posted a tutorial on making bias tape using the continuous loop method. Now I had seen this method before in a book [...]
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I tried this method once after reading this, with muslin, and found it awkward and imprecise. I also had a lot of seams, which, in some cases, ran in opposite directions.
I’m going to stick with the method I was taught: drawing a two-inch square at the selvage, drawing a diagonal through the line and drawing bias strip lines from there.
I have one bias strip maker somewhere, but it’s easy enough to crease the strips myself.
Do you know if this will work with jersey material? I was looking for a way to finish off a t-shirt that I’m making, both for the armholes, and the neck. I’m not even sure if I can iron cotton jersey and have it stay.
[...] the neck edge is finished with bias binding (yay – I also made my own using another ace Colette patterns tutorial). I cut a slit at the top & made one of those continuous lap finishes like for shirt [...]
[...] the exposed bias binding! I made my own bias tape (self-fabric), following their online continuing bias tape tutorial. It took three tries to get it right, but now I’ve got it – and am super keen to make [...]
[...] used Colette’s tutorials to make first the bias binding then the piping. The sew-along posts were great to refer to when needed too – in fact this [...]
[...] started off by getting the continuous bias tape & cording out of the way. Made a miscalculation, and had to make a few more inches. But I do [...]
Lovely tutorial! Thanks for sharing it… I have just 1 question.
About Step 4 – Should the marked lines be set along the long edge of the parallelogram or the shorter edge?
Hi Adri. They’ll be along the long edges. That way, when you fold the two shorter edges together, the lines will meet up, as in the photo. Hope that helps!
It does. Thank you!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have recently been saved from going mad (when making a lot of bias tape) by the ease of this method. It enabled me to churn out metres and metres and metres of fabulous tape in almost no time flat. And I found the bias tape maker very helpful in the process too. Yes, I know it’s possible to make bias tape without such a gadget but there’s no doubt that it is a very handy, timer-saving tool. Did I say thank you? Thank you!
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[...] este tutorial da Coletterie. Não foi fácil apanhar o jeito à coisa (alinhava mal o tecido e acabava [...]
I made bias tape for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I made 18 pillowcase dresses for Little school girls of Haiti, the instructions required bias tape and it was way too expensive to buy so I made it myself, turned out great. Thanks for the tutorial.
[...] about 10 feet of 3″ wide homemade bias binding [...]
[...] Seriously though, I can’t believe I was so afraid of bias tape. Maybe it’s because this tutorial took out all the guesswork. It’s been one of the easiest things I’ve learned so far. [...]
This is such a help. Thank you.
This is a printable, paper bias tape maker for whatever width bias tape you want: http://scientificseamstress.blogspot.com/2011/10/printable-bias-tape-maker.html
I tried the continuous bias tape method five times, and it just was not working for me! I’m sure it was due to my inexact line drawing on the fabric (or the spatial relations complexity of it all!), but it was making me a little nuts. I even have that delightful little bias tape gadget, as I found it on sale and was stoked to make my own fabulously foxy tape. The only method that worked for me was the old school, “90 degree angle, stitch the pieces together” method. And now I understand why creating your own bias tape gives you such a small, delightful thrill…I’ll be making some more tonight! Thank you for sharing both tutorials–your site is wonderful.
Thank you — this is so magical! The first time was not so great — you don’t want to know (and I don’t want to tell you) the silly user error I made. But second time around I cut a 20 x 20″ square and used my 1″ Clover gadget. Now I have really wonderful printed bias tape and a cool new gadget. I am a sewing newbie and I found the instructions easy to follow and thorough. Thank you so much for sharing such a great tute!
I loved this easy way to make bias tape- it worked the first try! Thanks so much! Now do you have a no fail way to sew it on neatly????
I can’t wait to try this technique! I have wasted to much time sewing those teeny tiny seams. Thanks so much for sharing! My crafting time is so limited with a 9 month old it is great to find ways to be more time efficient! Again, thanks!
Thank you SO MUCH for this little how-to. It’s been so long since the 9th grade that I had forgotten how to make this continuous tape. I wasted a batch before I followed your instructions step-by-step. Now I can complete my chair!
Anda
It had never dawned on me that a 10″ piece of fabric could be quite that useful :) Thanks for sharing!
[...] my own ‘bias binding’ out of the small scraps of fabric remaining, first using the Moebius strip technique with the machine (which was too wasteful as it required whole square pieces, and created [...]
HOORAY FOR YOU AND THIS WONDER-FULL TECHNIQUE!!!!!!!!
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