bearisgray

Now I See - said the blind man . . . .

LucyInTheSky

What's difficult with having the extra 1/4" of non-quilt is that it's hard for me to tell if I'm sewing 1/4" onto the quilt top. That's part of why I like what y'all said about cutting things right to the quilt top since then (in theory) it should be substantially easier to get to 1/4" onto the quilt top... No reason in making binding more complicated then it needs to be :mrgreen:

joeyoz

Ditto. My top, batting and back are all squared the same. My binding strips are 2 1/4". I don't know who you took your class from, but I've never heard of it done that way before.

bearisgray

Can you move your needle to a left-hand position? That might help a bit.

LucyInTheSky

I try to use my Walking Foot when I put on binding. With all the layers, it helps keep everything together and happy. I definitely could try the left position with my normal foot

bearisgray

I have a Pfaff and the walking foot works with the needle in any position.

I don't know how other makes and/or models work.

MadQuilter

I square the quilt and then I pin the binding with an even distance to the edge. My preferred method is continuous binding, so I only pin one side at a time. Then I finnagle the corner and continue. It is not show quality, but I have had no complaints and I have never had the problem you described.

dunster

From what I have been told, quilt binding should be "full", meaning that the batting completely fills the binding. Judges check for that, but more important the binding lasts longer and looks better if it's full.

I prefer the look of .5" binding and would use .25" only on very small wall hangings, but this is just my personal preference. I think some judges prefer thin binding. That doesn't matter to me, since I don't intend to submit any quilts for judging. As long as your method gives a full binding with consistent width, the method doesn't matter too much. You do need to select a strip width that matches your method though. I use your teacher's method with 2.5" strips, and I don't pin. I do use the walking foot, and my walking foot also allows any needle position.

Rose Marie

Wow, never heard of that problem before.
I dont cut off my batting or backing until I have sewn the binding onto the front of the quilt. 1/4 inch onto the quilt top. I dont see how you can get a good mitre on the corner if you sew a larger seam.
I also machine sew in the ditch on the front to attach the back binding.
This is after I Elmer glue the binding to the back side No hand sewing for me.
Have never pined the binding to the front either and just stretch it a small bit as I sew it to the front of the quilt.
But I do square up my quilt top before I layer and quilt.

raksmum

I'm thinking I'm going to cut my batting/backing to the quilt top size, no excess. What size binding strips do you cut? When I did 2.5" and did this, it gave me waaaaaaaay too much on the back. I'm thinking 2" should be enough (1/4 sewed down, 1/4 showing on top, 1/4 on side 1/4 on back, x 2 strips = 2")??

Lucy, (sorry, I couldn't get the "quote" to work)
I wouldn't make the binding strip less than 2 1/4". You have to remember once you fold it in half, you have half the width. Then place the raw edge to the raw edge of the quilt and sew 1/4". When you flip to the back it will "fill" with the edge of the quilt and you won't have excess.