What a pain! I just spent two hours looking at my "How To" books and still it took me forever. I did fine until the last step of forming the tube. With a small piece, it sure didn't make a lot of sense to me. But I did it.......now I know why I avoid the bias binding....:o)

I've never tried it so maybe you could give me lessons.

No way....LOL I may do it again for ten years...... :-P

I don't use the tube method. I use bias binding with stripes and plaids mostly and the tube method doesn't offset the design enough to make a nice 45 degree cut of fabric.

I usually lay my fabric (opened up) on the floor and mark it and cut with scissors. That way I can be sure I am getting a pretty 45 degree angle cut.

Once you've done it a bazillion times it gets easier. Nancy Zieman has a very clear and easy method in her book "10-20-30 Minutes to Quilt" and she may have published it elsewhere. I love using stripes on the bias to bind quilts.

But how does that work with smaller pieces of fabric? I was using an 18" square.

Did you need the bias for a curved edge? All of my quilts have been rectangular and I use straight cuts for the binding.

One time when I needed bias, I cut each piece individually and sewed them together to form the long piece.

That's what I did recently for a round tree skirt, and it seemed easy enough. I've tried the tube method, but it didn't work well for me!

I could have made it for a curved corner, but decided to keep it squared. The bias was really an exercise in learning for me. I'm glad I did it and I would do it again. Once I figured it out, I liked the results.

When I first started quilting I did the tube binding and you got so much binding out of a yard. But I haven't done it in so long everytime I look at the instructions I get confused.