salederer

I would like to clarify one thing. The binding should be full of batting, so cut the sandwiched quilt leaving about 1/8 to 1/4 inch batting left to fill the batting. I usually do 1/4 " that way I can trim it down a little more if necessary as I go. One other thing is at the corners you need to run your needle through from back to front and down again so the thread holds the corner together. I learned this from a quilt show judge who stayed at my home during our local guild quilt show.

Rose_P

Generally speaking, it would be hard to plan it so that the final edge of the binding is lined up exactly on both top and back of the quilt. If it bothers you that the machine stitching that you might use on the front will not be properly lined up on the back, you may want to hand sew the final line of stitches all around, using an invisible stitch. In that case, you would usually machine sew the binding to the front and hand sew on the back.

Machine stitches will usually not land precisely on the binding on the back, or at least not consistently. Some people do the final sewing down of the binding with a wide decorative machine stitch that will tend to catch the binding on the back, but even that is usually not perfect.

You may have seen binding on factory made items, such as placemats, and wondered how they lined up the stitching so perfectly. The answer is with a bias binding foot. It feeds strips of bias into the machine, and binds something with one step, but the binding would have only one layer of fabric at the edge, and would not hold up well on a quilt. Also, I have never seen one of these feet designed to hold the thickness of a quilt, though I assume factory machines are designed to handle specialized tasks. I have never known anyone who could get those stitches lined up that perfectly without the foot, but again, it's not suitable for a quilt. For one thing, in order to do your miters on the corners, you have to stop, fold the corners in and restart. There's no way to feed the bias into the bias binding foot from a mitered corner, as far as I know.

Since you have a thin quilt with only 2 layers, you could experiment with a bias binding foot. Here's a tutorial, but as she says, it's not suitable for a quilt. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91oM00_L28 You'll need to test it on a sample of the fabrics that you're using, keeping in mind that it may balk when you reach a seam. I have no idea how to do the mitered corners. To be honest, I think it would be easier to do the hand stitched finish.

ladyjane

irishrose..i see you cut your binding to 2 1/2 inch then do u fold in 1/2 and then stitch to quilt 1/4 inch?

Jannie

This is the way I do my binding except I use straight binding instead of of the bias binding.

DOTTYMO

If when sewing the binding on what ever size if you are not filling it with the back batting and top when folded over ,do this; using the walking foot sew slightly more than 1/4 inch. I find if it doesn't fold over and reach sewing line cheat and slither a piece off .
Putting the binding all round in one go makes aneat edge and corner with the special fold is so easy and not bulky. Always start part way down one side.

Small projects could be done without binding using the forget name. Then quilt. Right sides top and bottom facing and batting on top. Machine all round leaving an opening to turn through. Then quilt.

quiltqueen61

I also like to sew mine onto the back and flip to the front....machine stitch down....flanged binding looks nice too....good luck with your quilt.........it's all a learning process.........youtube has tons of tutorials......