Am I asking for trouble by binding before quilting?
 

A friend's father made a queen-size quilt years ago (pinks and blues - early 80's?) but passes away before he could complete the quilt. My friend has asked me to finish it for her. Here's my issue. He had already sewn prairie points around the outside of the quilt. I glue baste my quilts, but I'm afraid these pp will be in the way when I'm trying to quilt. Since I baste so heavily, if I go ahead and do the binding first to get the pp out of the way, will that cause problems with the quilting?

This video will probably help:
http://www.hgtv.com/video/ask-alex-q...deo/index.html


Even with the most meticulous basting you may still get some shifting of the layers and pushing or contracting of the sandwich during the quilting process. I have never done it myself and I don't think I would want to try. Many people have "birthed" quilts but I believe birthed quilts are usually just tied or tacked so the issues aren't the same.

So the prairie points are attached to the top? I think I would use blue painter's tape on top of (and possibly underneath) the prairie points to keep them manageable while quilting.

I would quilt before binding. The quilting "draws up" the top and backing and depending upon the density of the quilting I would worry about getting uneven results and a quilt that wouldn't lay flat if you put the binding on first. Also I always get some shift with the top and backing after quilting and that could also be another issue.

Thanks everyone! The thing is all laid out on the floor. I've just been staring at it most of the day, hoping the little gremlins would do the work for me!!