When I was finishing up my Atlantic Herring quilt, I decided to do something a little different: rounded corners! I posted a reel about it over on Instagram, but I wanted to share the steps here too, so you can give it a go. It’s one of those things that looks a bit fancy but is actually super simple—and you don’t need any special rulers or gadgets. Just grab a large round object (I used a beloved Norwegian design icon: a Cathrineholm platter 💙), and let’s do this.
Tools you'll need:
- Your quilt, ready for trimming
- A cutting mat
- A round platter (or any circular object with the radius you want)
- A rotary cutter
- A sewing machine
Step 1: Square up your quilt
Start by squaring up your quilt the usual way. Sometimes I do this on the floor, moving the cutting mat along the edges as I go. For Atlantic Herring, I used my cutting table and just rotated the quilt instead. Whatever works for your setup!
(Sorry about the image quality – I like my photos to be great, but these are screengrabs from the reel. They're quite informative, though, so I decided I'd use them despite the less-than-optimal image quality.)
Step 2: Trim the corners using your platter
Take your round object and place it in one corner of the quilt. Make sure it touches both sides of the corner exactly—this way the curve will be smooth and symmetrical. Then, using your rotary cutter, trim along the curve. That’s it! No measuring, no math. Just a good old kitchen platter doing double duty.
Repeat on all four corners.
Step 3: Make bias binding
Rounded corners mean you'll need bias binding so it can curve neatly around the edges. I know there are tons of tutorials out there for making continuous bias binding in clever ways—but honestly, I like to keep it simple.
I just cut 2 1/2” wide strips on the 45° bias and sew them together at the ends, right sides together, to make one long strip. It might take a few more seams since the strips are shorter than cutting across the full width of fabric, but it’s faster for my brain—and I can use my Stripology ruler to cut it all in no time.
A couple of tips here:
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It’s smart to add a few extra inches to your fabric requirements for bias binding, just in case. That way you can skip the tiniest triangle cuts and avoid having seams close to each other.
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I like to start by cutting a large 45° triangle off one short end of my fabric and then sew it right sides together to the opposite side, and press. That gives me a nice parallelogram shape, so all my binding strips end up the same length. See the diagram below!
Then just bind your quilt as usual, easing the binding gently around those rounded corners—and admire how smooth and soft your edges become. I’m kind of in love with how soft and modern rounded corners make a quilt look—definitely doing it again soon!
It was perfect for the Atlantic herring!