Welcome SharonMary! For years I did hand binding. Now I do it by machine. It took a bit of practice to get the stitches where i wanted them to be. But because of a bit of arthritis my hands just didn't do as well as with all the hand stitching. So I was motivated to learn. If a quilt is for competition or a showing I think they prefer hand binding, but if not, machine binding is much less time consuming and stronger.
I do a double 2 1/2 in. binding. I attach it on the back and then fold it over, i do not iron the binding in half, and stitch down on the front. I set my needle and presser foot so the seem is on the binding close to the first stitching on the back. There are many ways to do this and the internet has a lot of tutorials regarding machine binding. Some suggestions have you using different creative stitching programed on your machine. Good luck and have fun with it.