Free Sewing Tutorial: Tshirt Neck Binding

If you are following my blog for some time, you would know that I have been trying to learn how to bind a Tshirt/knit garment neck for a while. I have gotten better and better with each effort. Now I have reached a point where I feel fairly confident sharing this technique with you. Here is how I do it.

Supplies:
Knit fabric for the garment
Knit fabric for the binding

Process:
I use a different fabric for binding just to get some contrast but if you want to use the same fabric for garment body and binding then that is fine too.

1. Cut the garment in your desired Tshirt or Top pattern. Sew along the shoulders and the sides.

2. In this tutorial I have used the armhole to show how I bound it, but the neckline is done pretty much the same way. So first you measure all around the curve ( neck or armhole) that needs to be bound. Lets call this measurment L. Now cut a strip of binding fabric 3 inches long and 2/3L+0.75 inch wide.

3. Sew the 3 inch ends of the strip ( right sides together). Now you have a tube, now mark every quarter of this tube by placing pins there.

4. Align the joint in this tube with the lower joint of the armhole such that the joint of the tube is about 1 cm away from the armhole joint. This will ensure that all the layers are not being sewing together at the joint of armhole.

5. Pin the rest of the tube to the armhole such that every quarter point of the strip falls at every quarter point of armhole. Since we have taken the strip to be 2/3 of armhole length, its quarter will be naturally bigger than the quarter of binding. It is intentional, we want the binding to stretch a bit when we sew so that it holds the shape of the armhole.

6. Sew along the raw edge of armhole and binding. You will have to stretch the binding a bit to ensure that their are no gathers when you attach the armhole.

7. Fold the binding in half on itself and then fold it on the inside. Use pins to hold it in place. Be generous with pins, you don't want any part of binding to slip when you sew it in next step.

8. Sew a seam right below the binding, making sure you are catching the binding at the back. Go slow and steady.

9. Here is how it looks on the inside.

And done! If you feel that the neckline or armhole binding looks wonky, just steam iron it, that should help it get back into shape.
Do share the pics with me if you decide to give it a spin!