bearisgray

Interesting - how we have different ways of trying to arrive at the same place.

I trim the sandwich before applying the binding. I also "stay-stitch" the three layers together before starting to apply the binding.

I cut bias strips about 2-7/8 inches wide and my finished binding is about 7/16 inches wide. I like a wider binding and that's the width that "works" best with the leftest needle setting on my machine.

I do not starch the strips - I do "loosely fold" the binding and machine baste the raw edges together. I also DO NOT press a crease into it for the reason Prism99 stated.

With the quilt edges sewn together and the binding edges sewn together, I only need to fret about lining up two sets of edges.

The extra sewing does take a bit longer - but it took me longer to undo and resew a layer that had bunched up when I did not do the extra sewing.

I find that the bias binding does "stretch" a bit while applying it - which results in a binding that "hugs" the edge and lays beautifully. (If the binding was cut at 100 inches, for example, I would have used 99 inches of it)

P.S. I always do a bit of a "practice/test run" for how wide to cut the binding and/or which needle position setting to use before cutting out all the binding and/or sewing the binding all the way around.

If I am going to hand stitch the binding to the back - then I want the binding to barely cover the machine stitching.

If I am going to wrap the binding to the front and then machine stitch it down, then I want the binding to overlap the first stitching by about 1/8 inch.