Tips for Binding Curves on Carpet & Flooring

When creating custom boat mats, snap-in flooring or even rugs from carpet remnants, you’ll likely need to sew a binding around the edge of your flooring. In boating applications especially, the corners of each mat often take a gentle curve. We’ve put together a quick video to show you a few tips for setting up your sewing station to make sewing around these outside curves a little bit easier.

When sewing binding on flooring we like to use the Sailrite® 1-1/4" Swing-Away Binder attachment (#120474) on our sewing machine. This attachment helps to guide and fold the binding tape over the edge of your material as you sew. The 1-1/4-inch binder was specifically designed to accommodate flooring projects and can be used to sew material that will compress to five millimeters in thickness.

To get the smoothest corners on your binding we recommend making a few minor adjustments to the binder setup before you sew. In this video, Brian will outline how he sets up his binder to best sew around corners. He also includes a brief bonus discussion comparing how three common binding options perform in a curved flooring application.

4 Tips For Setting Up a Binder to Sew Curves

• Position the binder as close as possible to the foot of the sewing machine.
• Tilt the binder so the front is pointing slightly to the left. This keeps the bottom of the binder out of the way of your fabric assembly as you turn corners.
• Use a magnetic guide to extend the fence of the binder by the presser foot. This will prevent the binding from accidentally being pushed away from your flooring.
• Placing another magnetic guide at the base of the binder on the bed of the machine prevents the binder from swinging away until you’re ready to move it.

Ready to bind the edges of your flooring? Watch our videos “How to Make a Custom Boat Floor Mat with Woven Vinyl” (#300126XHT) and “How to Replace Boat Carpet with Woven Vinyl Flooring” (#200674XHT) for step-by-step tutorials.