I learned to make what was called a french binding because the binding is usually one of the first parts of a quilt to show wear. Making it a seperate piece of fabric about 2 1/2 inches wide, folding it in half width-wise, sewing it on the quilt front-side, then folding/turning the strip it to the back before hand-hemming the back, doubles the thickness of that strip of binding fabric, which makes it last twice a long before it will wear out. If you want your quilts to last, I suggest making the binding double thickness front and back by using this method.