Kathryn,
Sorry you are hitting a wall with binding your quilts. If Dallas was close to New Jersey, I'd drop by your house and do the binding for you -- I love binding. I struggled with bindings when I started quilting and read every book I could find. When I took Betty Cotton's course in Cotton Theory, she demonstrated how to do binding and it's been a snap for me ever since. Betty demonstrated the same thing I'd read in all those books, but seeing someone do it made it easy for me to understand. I do all my bindings by machine because I have arthritis in my hands, so hand bindings would never get done. I admire hand sewn bindings on other quilts, but I know that's not my reality.
I just want to encourage you to keep trying, keep experimenting until you find something that works for you. The nice quilters on this Board encouraged me to keep practicing with my FMQ and sure enough, I am getting better at it. One of these days I will be able to say I enjoy FMQing -- but that's a long time in the future!
Happy binding to you!