Originally Posted by
Terri D.
The easiest way to achieve a wide binding is NOT to trim your quilt sandwich until after the binding is stitched on. Cut your strips the width you want, fold, press and sew the binding with a 1/4" seam allowance. Instead of trimming the excess layers to within a 1/4" of your stitching line, leave some extra extending beyond it so the binding is filled when turned to the back and stitched down.
This is what you need to do if you use a wider binding. I trim the back and batt "roughly" to about 1 inch or a little more beyond the edge of the pieced top. Then sew the binding on with the 1/4 inch seam allowance on the
quilt front. The batt and back will extend beyond the raw edges of the binding.
After the binding is sewn on, I cut accurately with a ruler and rotary cutter as wide as I want that seam to be. Just do short cuts, and line up the ruler with the stitching.
With a 3 inch binding: folded in half is 1.5 inches. The seam to sew it onto the quilt makes it 1.25 inches left. Fold that in half and you have 1 1/8 inches that you want to leave on the batt and back layers. I would make it one inch. You need a little room for the thickness of the batt.
Hope this makes sense, and hope it works for you.