The hand sewing worked fine on the quilt that I did, and I used cotton binding, but I'm thinking now that you mention, that back to front binding and hand sewing to the front (to sew into the cotton) might work. Others have spoken of stretching, but I think that the quality of the fleece might have something to do with that. Had no problems just spray basting; the quilting was pretty simple. Did it on my regular domestic sewing machine.