two toned binding tutorial

Today is my friend Maria's birthday. Maria and I have grown to be wonderful friends over the years thanks to blogland, even though she lives halfway around the world and we have never met in person. She has always sent me lovely gifts for my birthdays and Christmases, always has kind things to say at the end of my blog posts and often reaches out to me in email just to check on me and my family. I love you Maria! Happy Birthday!

This year for our birthdays, Maria and I decided to swap tablerunners. Way back in February, she sent me my beautiful runner which I love to keep out on my table. I had fun creating a tablerunner to send off to Maria for her birthday.....

The arrows were fun to make. I used this tutorial . The thing I really had fun with is the two toned binding. I thought I'd give you a quick tutorial so you can do it too! Ready?

First, you need to cut strips of your two colors, and stitch them together lengthwise just like you would do to make regular binding. Your main color (gray here) should be 1 3/8 inches wide x the distance around your project + 10-12 inches. The accent color (bright pink here) should be 1 5/8 inches wide x the distance around your project = 10-12 inches. Now sew your two strips together along the length like this....

fold it in half and press.

see how that little bit of pink peaks around on the gray side? cool huh? Now you want to machine stitch your binding onto the BACK of your tablerunner (or quilt, or whatever you are binding!). Make sure you have it wrong side up, with only the accent color showing. I won't give you all of the steps for this part, there are tons of great binding tutorials online, but sew it on just like you would any other binding, joining your ends the way you normally would.

now bring your binding around do the front. I love to use wonder clips for this part and then hand stitch it down neatly on the front. You might want to machine stitch in in the ditch between the two colors on the binding.... it's really up to you!

I just love the way this finishes up, looking like piping around the edge but so much easier to do! Let me know if you try it out!