I have not tried to do a machine binding from the front as you describe. I have tried the fanged binding and that worked alright as long as I was very very careful. For me the most accurate binding is where I sew front sides together of quilt to binding, turn it over to the back and stitch it by hand. It never fails. It takes a bit, a lot of a bit, longer to finish but never fails. A 2 1/2" strip on the bias works everytime.