Tutorial: How to Make a Faced Edge

Hi all -

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! I had a wonderful visit with my family and then had  a few days at home to relax and get back into the swing of things.

I thought I'd start the new year with a tutorial on how I did the faced edge on my nephew's wallhanging. I wanted to record the details in case I need a refresher the next time I need a faced edge on a quilt.

Here is the finished quilt top that I started with:

It is completely quilted and trimmed to size, with a 1/4 inch of seam allowance around the outside.

I started by cutting 4 strips of facing fabric that is 2-1/2" wide by the length of each side of the quilt. I chose to use the fabric that I used behind the corner appliques since this is the fabric that will touch the facing the most. My quilt is square so the strips are all the same length. For a rectangular quilt, you would have 2 shorter strips and 2 longer strips:

Press under 1/2" along one long side of each of the strips:

This fold doesn't have to be exact since this will be the edge of the facing that is closer to the middle of the quilt.

Line up the corner of two of the strips with the raw edges in the corner and the folded edges to the inside, as shown. If your quilt is rectangular, this will be 1 long strip and 1 short strip. Pin along the raw edge of the top strip:

Lift up the folded edge of the top strip and put a few dots of washable glue in the seam allowance:

Lay the folded edge back in place and press with a dry iron to set the glue:

Take out the pins and fold the top strip back. Sew the strips together right along the crease:

Fold the top strip back over to make sure that everything lines up correctly:

Then fold the top strip over again and trim the end of the bottom strip along the edge of the top strip:

This will reduce the bulk in the corners of the facing.

Repeat these steps to finish each of the four corners of the facing. When finished, you should have a square or rectangle like the following, that is just slightly smaller than the size of the quilt top. The outside edges are the raw edges; the inside edges are the folded edges:

Pin the facing to the quilt top, right sides together. The facing will be slightly smaller than the quilt top, but you can stretch it to match things up:

Turn the facing to the back and press. Make sure to roll the edges so that the facing doesn't show on the front as you press. Having the facing slightly smaller than the quilt top helps with this. For this quilt, I didn't trim the corners before turning them, but instead folded the corners along the stitching, then flipped them to the inside of the facing. Next time I might try trimming them to see how that works:

Whip stitch the facing to the quilt backing to finish:

Turn the quilt over and admire your beautiful, clean edges:

I hope you find this tutorial useful!

Nancy