Originally Posted by Shelley
One thing to keep in mind: If you are going to enter your quilt in a fair or competition, the judges like hand sewn binding, small stitches, equal amounts of binding in the front and back and full bindings. The only red ribbons that our guild got at the fair were on the quilts where one of the girls uses a machine instead of hand stitching, all the rest were blues.
Fortunately, it isn't always the case. As an example, Fire Dragon Rhapsody by Ricky Tims won the award for Best Machine Workmanship at the 2006 AQS Show and is now part of the permanent collection at the quilt museum in Paducah. He does all bindings completely by machine.
I was just at an event where he was asked about doing machine bindings on his competition quilts. He commented that judges want to see that whatever technique is used, that it is executed well. Apparently it is working out okay for him, he was recently selected as one of "The Thirty Most Distinguished Quilters in the World."
If you'd like a look at his quilt:
http://www.rickytims.com/images/Fire_Dragon72.jpg