DIY Bias Tape

I, from time to time, like to add new segments to the blog (and also make other segments disappear completely!). And today is one of those days. I knew I needed more time to complete my crochet project (I need more yarn and I'm just waiting for the right deal), so I knew I needed something to fill the void.

So I began looking at other projects I have coming up. One of which is how to turn 5 fat quarters into a travel bag set. (I've actually been waiting to make this for a while now. I just had to find the perfect fat quarter set to make it out of!). And to make the set one of the fat quarters is cut into bias tape. This meant I had to research how to do that. And while I was thrilled to learn something new, I didn't want to use up a project post to write about it.

That's when I decided to add a new segment to the blog. One where I can write about the new techniques i'm learning.

The Technique

Turn A Fat Quarter into Bias Tape

Instructions from BlogLovin' (For the best written instructions)

and this image:

(Image from The Sewing Loft)

Supplies Needed:

Fat Quarter
Ruler
Scissors
marker
Basic Sew Supplies (i.e. Sewing Machine, Straight pins,etc)
Iron and Ironing Board
Optional: Rotary Cutter and Mat

Results

So the first step in turning a fat quarter into bias tape is to trim down the fat quarter into a square. I wanted the longest strip of bias tape that I could make, so I just squared out my fat quarter rectangle.

This left me with an 18 x 18 inch square. This I quickly cut in half diagonally. So I had two right triangles. (My ruler wasn't quite long enough to stretch across my square, so my triangles weren't exactly identical. They were close enough for me though!)

I then lined them up like so:

I pinned them together and quickly sewed them together with a 1/4 inch seam. I then pressed the seam open. Over all I was left with a big parallelogram!

So far so good!

Although my project calls for 1 3/4 inch width bias tape, I decided to use 2 inch width bias tape instead. So I measured two inches across 2 inches. (I like to have some wiggle room!)

The hardest part in making bias tap is lining up the line properly. Since I lined along the wrong side of my fabric I didn't have an x to look for. So I did my best to eye ball where my lines should line up. And to test it out I folded my fabric over both ways and made sure the line was still straight.