I'm not too keen on hand binding and have machine stitched the last few quilts I've done. I had some real dodgy finishes especially when using decorative stitches as they'd look fine on the reverse of the quilt but pretty awful on the front. From trial and error I've found that I can get a much better overall finish if I sew the binding onto the reverse of the quilt instead of the top so that the top of the quilt has even stitching around it when it's folded over. Its so much quicker machine binding.