How to Use a Bias Tape Maker

Whether you're making bias tape or straight grain double fold tape, the most time consuming and tedious part is doing all of the folding and pressing. So double fold tape is where you start with a strip of fabric and you have to first fold to find the center so you have your press line. Then you're going to fold both sides in towards the center. Then you're gonna fold one more time again to actually fold it in half and you're going to press it. So, especially if you're going to make a really really thin tape like this, it can be a little bit tedious and time consuming to do. So to make it a little bit quicker and easier, you can actually use a bias tape maker. So that looks something like this little contraption here. So this is a bias tape maker, and they come in many different thicknesses, which would be the final width that you want your double fold tape to be. So some of them are going to be narrower down here and some of them are going to be wider out here, they will always have a measurement on them. Sometimes they're in millimeters, sometimes they're in inches like this one here, but they or they will say it on the package that they come in. So just pick the slice of the tape that you wanna make your finished size and get that appropriate bias state maker. Now, again, if you're going to make straight grain double fold tape, that requires you to just cut strips of fabric on the Strait of grain. If you wanna make bias tape you do need to cut your strips on the bias. So just real quick, if you're not familiar with what the bias is, this is our fabric. You have two straight grains. You're going to, that are perpendicular to each other. So they are going to go this way. You can easily locate them by the finding the salvage edge of your fabric. So this is a straight grain perpendicular to this is a straight of grain. 45 degrees from your salvage edge is your bias which means it has the most stretch. So if I were to grab my fabric here on the 45 degree, you can see, I have a lot of stretch. This is how you need to cut your fabric strips in this direction 45 degrees from your salvage edge if you're making bias tape. But if you just wanna practice using your bias tape maker and go ahead and make some straight grain tape that you can use for a binding on a square project. Go ahead and just cut some strips of fabric. Now, depending on the size of bias tape maker that you have selected, the packaging will sometimes tell you what size of strip to cut to start with. But if it doesn't tell you a good rule of thumb is that you can double the number. So if you're going to end up with one inch finished double fold tape, then you can cut anywhere from one and three quarter inch to two inch strip and you'll be just fine. Once you have your strip, whether it's bias or straight grain, you're going to need to cut one of the ends at an angle to start. So you don't have to, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just grab your rotary cutter and come in and go ahead and cut an angle to start. This is going to help you feed this tape or this strip into your bias tape maker. So you have two ends, a big end and a little end. You'll always wanna feed your fabric first through the big end. So just insert that corner, that angle that you've just made. And I'm gonna flip this around because I'm right-handed and insert it in and you should just keep pushing it in there until your point comes out the very end. So it's not coming right away. You're just going to have to rock the fabric back and forth till you can get it to come out of the end. If it's not coming easily go ahead and make it a more pronounced point. It's really just like you need to get it started. So it's easier to be able to grab one end. That is a point like this than it is to grab an entire strip. You can see how that was much easier with my more pronounced point. So go ahead and pull it out until you no longer have an angled edge. You're just getting all of this, the angle that you cut off to start out of your maker, and now you're ready to go. So now you're going to need to bring in a pressing surface and an iron. So I've got mine right here all ready to go. My iron's already heated up and now what I'm going to do is I'm going to simply pull my my double fold tape and my bias tape out this end using the pressure of my iron and I'm going to grab this little loop back here and pull back. So very quickly and easily it's going to make that double fold for me. So I'm holding down with my iron. I'm pulling back on that little loop bringing my iron as I go and pressing it in place. So it's doing all of that folding for me. So obviously this first little area here doesn't look the best because that's where we cut our little angle. But the further you move on you're going to see how quickly all of your tape gets made. So I'm gonna move it all the way to the right-hand side of my pressing mat. Go ahead and put my iron down, pulling back and pressing as I go. And it's doing that full for me very, very quickly. So I'm gonna go ahead and go all the way down the strip. Again, you just press as you go. Re-adjust or reset yourself all the way to the other end of your pressing mat continue pulling on the bias state maker and pressing. Make sure that you're always pulling straight and that this is evenly feeding. If at any time your strip starts going too much to the top or too much to the bottom you're going to need to recenter it. Just make sure that you're always pulling it right down the center of your strip. So this is doing the step where it's actually folding both sides in, towards the center. So I'm almost done here. Just go right along the edge, folding and pressing and then you can just go right off of the edge. Right like so, and now I have folded both of my raw ends towards the center. Now, of course you will have to go back and do the actual folding of your tape around the edge of your project by yourself, but you can see how much quicker and easier it is to use a bias tape maker to fold your raw ends towards the center. And you don't have to be doing it with your fingers and getting your iron really close your fingers. You can use your bias tape maker and do it so much quicker and easier.