Prism99

You can certainly do that. However, for myself, I have never been able to get the corners to look good using that method. I find it actually more difficult! With practice, I have gotten the corners to look very good using the traditional method with mitered borders.

One thing that many people do not realize with the traditional binding method is that where you*stop* when getting to a corner -- that is, where you stop sewing and backstitch -- must be the exact distance away from the edge as your seam allowance. If, for instance, you are using a 3/8" seam allowance when sewing on the binding, you must stop 3/8" from the edge when you get to the corner. If you use a 1/2" seam allowance, stop 1/2" from the edge before removing the quilt and folding the binding for the corner. A mistake I used to make was stopping 1/4" away even if my seam allowance was more than 1/4". When I did that, the corners would never work out!

The other thing I learned to do when folding the corner is to simply make sure that the binding's fold lines up exactly with the old binding edge, and that the new binding edge lines up exactly with the quilt edge.

I remember being very confused and having to consult diagrams multiple times to do binding corners. Now that I have practiced enough to have memorized a few simple principles, binding corners actually come out just fine.

One thing I would recommend is not starting with too narrow of a binding. It's easier to work with a wider binding and not try to "fill" the binding too much. Although the result is a slightly larger binding than I would put on a show piece, I find it easiest to cut 2.5" binding strips (I *always* heavily starch the binding fabric before cutting strips; makes it much easier to handle!), use a 3/8" seam allowance, and stop 3/8" before the corner. I also sometimes ***very*** carefully nip off a little of the batting at the corner -- not the binding! -- to make the binding easier to miter neatly.

Edit: I wanted to add that it's worth it to make several 12" sandwich squares and practice attaching binding to them until you get the corners right.