Making continuous loop fabric for bias tape

So as I said the other day, there are two ways to make bias tape. The first is to piece together individual strips of fabric. The second is to use the continuous loop method and sew the fabric in a shape of a tube and then cut the bias strips in a spiral, like peeling an orange (the fancy way).

I had never tried the continuous loop method before, but was intrigued by a tutorial I found on the web, written by Shelley Rodgers and thought I'd give it a try.

I like my finished tape to be double fold and between 5/8 - 7/8" wide. I'm not too particular as long as it's close. Since I want double fold tape, I take my finished width and multiply by 4 to get 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 inches, so I'll shoot for 3 inches and hope for the best.

The next step is to determine how much fabric to use, and Shelley provides a chart that is very accurate and can help eliminate waste. I actually need about half the length of tape listed in even her smallest length, so I opted to cut my 45" bolt in half. After doing that, I then cut a rectangle approximately 3/8 of a yard.



Take the selvage and fold it to the opposite edge of the fabric, forming a triangle. Trim the fabric at the fold and move the triangle to the other side of the fabric to form a parallelogram. The selvages should be next to each other. Next, place the fabric pieces right sides together at the selvage, pin and stitch.









Press open the seams. I never used to understand how important this step is, but it really helps give your fabric a very clean and finished look. Skipping this step is NOT a good idea.



Trim the excess fabric from the seam allowance




This is where I strayed from Shelley's tutorial a bit. I don't have the patience to mark all the cutting lines as she recommends, and I am willing to take the risk that there is a slight variance in the strips and even that the width of my strips might not be exactly precise. So I choose to just mark the width of the first strip, but I recommend that you take a look at the link I provided on her tutorial and decide for yourself whether to make the marks or not.

UPDATE: Now having done this process about 10 times, I have decided it really does make it easier to mark the fabric. Cutting the loop goes much faster! So, I use regular crayons that I stole from my very tolerant step-son to mark the fabric and I don't worry about making sure the marks won't show, because ultimately the marks will be cut away and/or folded to the inside of the bias tape.



Now here is the tricky part. You want to make a tube of fabric, lengthwise by bringing together the top and bottom edges of the parallelogram. But, AND THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, you need to offset the edges by the width of one strip of bias tape. So pin the corner of the bottom edge to the mark of the first strip width. The marking pencil in this photo shows where my mark was.



I found it challenging to pin the tube of fabric because it starts to twist up and doesn't seem like it will ever lay flat, but I kept pinning the top and bottom edge together, and gave the tube a little jiggle and allowed the seam to spiral around the tube, and voila! I was able to get the fabric to lay flat. Notice how my pins on the seam go around in a spiral formation. Also notice that there are tails at both ends of the tubes. Both tails should be the approximate width of the finished strips



Now it's time to stitch your spiral tubing


Here is what your finished tube should look like. Remember you should have a tail at both ends of the tube, only one is visible in my photo.



Press open your seams


Now it's time to cut the fabric strips. Remember I chose not to mark the cutting lines earlier. If I had, I could just cut along those lines and be done with it. But alas, this is where my lazy nature takes its toll, so I lay my tube along the diagonal cutting lines on my cutting board and used those as a guide for cutting my strips. Be sure to cut only one layer of fabric at a time and cut in a spiral motion (again, think peeling an orange the fancy way).



Continue cutting to the end of the tube and ta-da! You have a very long strip of fabric for making bias tape. I cover how to press the tape into a double fold in the tutorial for making bias tape from individual strips. And lastly, sew your bias tape to your project.

Now, which method do I like best. I find it much easier to wrap my head around sewing individual strips together, but it is far more tedious when you need a lot of bias tape. I think I will try the continuous loop method a few more times, as I suspect it gets much easier with practice, and ultimately I think it might turn out to be a bit faster and since I only get time to sew in between my day job, feeding the family, little league games and nursing the baby, I need all the time saving tricks I can get!