Bernina Bias Binder Attachment

[pamo65]

Does anyone have any experience with this attachment? If so, which width do you recommend? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

[pamo65]

I believe the latest Bernina free video on The Quilt Show home page shows this very gadget.

[pamo65]

I have this attachment. I've only used it a little bit. It works *fantastic* when you don't get out of alignment, but if you get off a little bit, boy it's hard to get back on the right track! That probably takes practice more than anything, and I just haven't worked with it enough.

One thing I haven't seen yet, and I think is desperately needed, is how to handle corners. I bound a quilt with it, it's actually one of mine in the gallery, the Crazy Birds. What I ended up doing as I came to an edge was to run the binding off the edge a little bit so that I would have enough to turn to the back and stitch down. It wasn't the most elegant or even remotely pretty thing to do, but it was a quilt full of experiments, and it just belonged there!

I don't know how much it cost, I got it as a gift, so I can't comment on the value. For what I paid for it it's a great value! :wink: I will also use it in some clothing as well, it's great for making button loops, spaghetti straps, tie-backs, and that sort of thing.

HTH
Lisa

[pamo65]

Yep I bought one two weeks ago. There are also a couple of videos on youtube showing how to do mitered corners with it. I've tried on scraps and I"m not ready to do it on a quilt yet. I have so far bound an apron (all curved edges) and it was a breeze, came out more professional looking than anything I've done yet. And I've also bound two kiddie quilts that I made, but since I'm not confident yet of the mitered corners I just rounded the corners. It was super fast adn so much easier. No burned fingers from trying to fold and iron all that binding I cut. I got the #88 bernina binding attachment. Love it so far! Am probably going to give one to my mom for Christmas.

[LoriReid]

I also have the binder attachment #88 for my Bernina 780. BUT, I must admit that I have not even used it yet

[LoriReid]

I did it! I finally mastered the mitered square corners with the Bernina binder 88 tool. It took a lot of scraps. I saved the edges of quilts that I had quilted, so I'd have a lot of sandwiches to practice on. I tried angles too. It's all possible. Just practice practice practice. I think I did all the corners on a bunch of triangles and long rectables, maybe 30-40 of them all told. I got the full idea after about 4 peices (maybe a dozen corners), but still had messups. So kept practicing. Once I "got it" it isn't too hard. It's just taking lots of care and one single straight pin. I found that finger pressing and kinda rolling the the folded binding (folded into the miter shape) back and forth a little bit helped to give it a bit of 'memory'. I also damped it a bit to help set it. Not a lot. just licked the tip of my fingers and did the sqishy squishy mash roll it back and forth thing.

My biggest problem was remembering to keep the flat binding aligned in the binder when I pulled it through the attachment in order to get enough space to hand pinch/roll/mash the folded miter corner. If I got the flat binding out of whack, then pulling it all backwards through the attachment was difficult. But if I kept it flat, it was okay. (I ended up having the trailing end of my binding laying up over the top of my machine so the weight of it was help up and it wouldn't pull it sideways/downwards in the binder)

Sounds hard, but once you get it.. it's not really that hard.

This binder really does work and it will do 60 and 45 degree angled corners too if you want. 90 degree corners really aren't that bad. But you do have to pin, maybe dampen it a little to help the finger pressing to get it to stay, holding with tweezers helps too. and PRACTICE. You won't do this off the bat the first time. But it will save you hours of time if you make a lot of quilts and baby stuff.

[Zarah]

Thanks for sharing. I'm glad to hear that you succeeded

[Zarah]

Good to know.

[Zarah]

I have enjoyed the Bias Binder for over 15 years. Most of my quilts I just round off the corners and zoom through binding.

[suehenyon]

Hi forestcats,
if you've had one for 15 years, you must have an older style. Which one? Any comment on batting thickness? How wide are your strips cut? Bias or straight cut? Thanks!

[Sewdreamy]

OK, clearly I have to practice more. I have not been successful with the attachment, and I really only want to use it on vest, jacket, and utility quilt edges. After this info, I will try harder.