I've often used the excess backing as a self binding, machine stitching it on the front side and it works just fine! In fact unless you were a quilter, you would never know. I find by the time this type of binding is starting to wear out, the rest of the quilt is too. This is not the binding that I would use on a special or show quilt but it works really well on those "drag around kid's quilts", college bound quilts or the one on the rec room sofa that the dog loves to have a nap on. As quilters, I think we need a variety of techniques and should pick what works best for each quilt considering the end use of the quilt.