Making Your Own Bias Tape

Pattern - Love Notions Pullover and Hoodie for Men
Skill Level - Confident Beginner
Fabric - Brushed sweatshirt fleece and ribbing from l'oiseau fabrics
Skills - Making your own bias tape

Love Notions' newest addition is the North Star Pullover and Hoodie for men.  Now you can make this great pullover for the whole family!  Collar style or hoodie - the guys are going to love it!  The details really make it and the bias binding for the neck is so easy and gives you a professional finish to be proud of.  In fact, you'll want to make it stand out and you can do that by making your own bias binding.  And once you find out how easy it is to make your own bias binding, you may never buy it again!

Did you realize you can make a huge amount of bias binding from a 12" square?

Since the North Star (and the Constellation for women and the Navigator for children) calls for 1/2" double fold bias binding I used my 25mm tape maker.  Click on any picture to see it more clearly.

So I started by cutting a 12" square of my fabric - in this case it was a beautiful rayon that worked with the heathered burgundy sweatshirt fleece and black accent materials from l'oiseau fabrics.

Next, slice diagonally through the square from one corner to the opposite one.

Mark the centre opposite of each triangle with a pin - as I have in the picture

Now match the pins and your fabric pieces will look like this.

Pin those sides together, take it to your sewing machine, stitch with a 1/4" seam and press it open.

Back to the cutting mat because I like the grid lines to make sure my top and bottom are parallel.  I draw - with a pen - lines every 2".  The pen doesn't matter, because eventually I'll be using that as my cutting guide.

Now the tricky part!  Bring the short sides together to match lines creating a tube, but offset the lines by one strip so that you have a 2" strip overhanging on each side.  Initially this was a little awkward for me, but I eventually mastered it.

Once you've pinned your lines together, stitch along the edge with a 1/4" seam and press it open.

Now you're ready to cut along the lines with your scissors to get the 2" strip.

Time to bring the bias tape maker into play!  Feed the pointed end of the strip into your 25mm tape maker with the right side to the back - you can use a pin to help it through.  It's quite magical how the tape is folded as you pull it out!  Press the folded tape with your iron while gently pulling back with the tape maker.  Be careful to hold the tape maker by the handle so you don't get steam burns!

Once you've run the strip through the tape maker, you can now fold this in half and press it to get your 1/2" double folded bias tape.  My 12" square of fabric gave me 66" of tape - more than enough for the neckline of the North Star and a nice little bit left for another project!

I store my tape on cardboard rolls and secure them with a pin.  I have a whole drawer full of beautiful bias tape.  You can use this same method for other size tape makers - cut:

• 1.25" for a 12mm maker to get 1/4" double fold tape
• 1.5" for an 18mm maker to get 3/8" double fold tape - and of course
• 2" for a 25mm maker to get 1/2" double fold tape

Here are a few more examples of how I used bias tape in the necks of this pullover. This was cotton batik on a test muslin.

And this was the neck binding for a hooded version.

And tiny pink roses for this burgundy and black hoodie.

And don't forget plain quilting cotton - but you can still make a statement with it!

Now that you know how to make your own bias tape, you're ready to dress up those neck seams of your pullovers and make them pop!

And if you don't already have this amazing pattern - or the other members of its family - you can get them from my affiliate links below.

Love Notions North Star Pullover and Hoodie for men
Love Notions Constellation Pullover and Hoodie for women
Love Notions Navigator Pullover and Hoodie for children