How To Make Your Own Continuous Bias Binding

Making bias tape is a nice way to be able to finish off your sewing projects neatly. One of my favourite sewing tips and methods for finishing projects is to use bias binding or make continuous bias tape. Bias tapes and binding can be bought quite easily in a lot of fabric types and finishes. But what if you want to use a matching fabric to your project and want to know how to make continuous bias tape of your own instead of the ready made variety? Or you want to make your own bias out of a pretty contrasting fabric? Well, here is how to make bias tape binding in a couple of different ways.

*This post has been updated – it was first posted in July 2019

How To Make Continuous Bias Binding

this Idea!

How to make bias tape: There are actually two methods of bias tape making. And so if you want to make your own bias tape it is useful to know both. 

Cut Long Strips On The Bias Of The Fabric

If you are just starting with learning how to make bias tape from fabric then you could cut a lot of long strips of your chosen fabric on the bias. And then sew all the strips together. But this can be time consuming and take up a lot of fabric.

Actually I did do this for my little girl dress. I only needed a short length of bias, and I had a long remnant of fabric that was perfect for this method.

But, when I was making the Tracy Bee Tunic, I had only a very limited amount of the Liberty London contrast fabric. I had a small rectangle left, in fact. So I decided to try another method that involves only two seams.

How To Make Continuous Bias Binding From A Rectangle of Fabric

This method can be a lot quicker for making a long piece of continuous bias binding from a square or rectangle fabric . You only need to sew 2 seams and cut the fabric twice!

For DIY Bias Tape You will need

• a square or rectangle of fabric
• scissors
• a ruler – preferably a see through quilting ruler or similar
• tailor’s chalk or a washout/iron out pen
• a sewing machine
• bias tape makers – these are invaluable whatever way you make your tape.

Take your piece of fabric and fold one of the corners to lay flat towards the opposite side. This creates a triangle. Press the fold.

Then cut carefully down the pressed fold line.

Take the resulting triangle and lay the straight edge against the other end of your rectangle of fabric. You are creating a rhombus/parallelogram

Now put the pieces together right sides together and sew 5mm seam allowances. I use the edge of my presser foot as a guide. I also make the stitch length small (about 1.5-2) . Press open the seam.

You now have a rhomboid shape with a seam within it. The edges perpendicular to the seam are the straight edges that have no give. The other 2 sides are the bias sides, these have some stretch.

Marking Your Bias Lines

Now using one of the bias edges as your starting point, you need to mark out lines at how wide you want your bias tape to be. I wanted to make 25mm double fold bias tape, so I needed my lines to be 50mm apart (2inches)

Using the see through quilting ruler, I used a washable pen to make lines 2 inches apart.

When you get to the other end of the fabric you may end up with a piece that is insufficiently wide. This cannot be used for bias.

But it may be usable for something else – see my post on how to use up every scrap!

You end up with a piece of fabric that has lines drawn on the bias at equal intervals.

The next step is where the magic happens. Take the fabric, and right sides together bring the 2 line ends towards each other. But instead of joining together both line 1 ends, slightly offset joining the straight edges together. Join the bottom of line 1 to the top of line 2, Join the bottom of line 2 to the top of line 3. And so on.

Pin together, and sew a 5mm seam allowance to join the edges. Again, keep the stitch length as small as possible to ensure the stitches don’t fall apart when you cut this into a strip. Press seam open. You have created a tube of fabric with slightly offset ends.

Now, you will see that you have a continuous line to cut from one end of the tube to the other.

Cutting along the line gives you a continuous long strip of bias fabric. This is how to make bias strips.

How To Make Bias Binding Tape From These Strips

I love these tape makers. All you have to do is work out how wide you want your finished bias, then double this. Cut your bias strip to be the doubled width, then feed your long strip through one of these tape makers. As it is fed through, the bias folds are created, and all you need do is to pull slowly and press with an iron as you go along. Magic!

And there you have it. Your finished pretty bias tape ready to be the finishing touch to your latest make.

Have You Enjoyed This Post On Making Continuous Bias Binding?

I have lots of different sewing ideas, pattern reviews and free patterns on my site, why not go take a look?

Want to see how to sew bias onto a project? DIY Danielle has a great article on how to do just that!

I’d love to see your makes. Tag me on social media.

And please do pin this post for later.