Binding Discussion
 

Let me start out by saying, I truly hate doing hand work. I respect greatly anyone who does do any type of handwork, but me personally, I just dont have the patience to do hand work.

As such, all my quilts get bound via machine. My first ones were atrocious, but 20-30 quilts later and I am getting darned good at them.

My goal in this lovely hobby is to produce, enter and of course win at shows :) and I know that shows require the binding to be hand done. It kind of got me thinking. From the information that I have read about shows and what to do for entries, I see that machine quilting is still a relatively new concept for show quilts. And many people took time and effort to make that happen. But it seems that the binding part was left out.

So was wanting to get a discussion going on what the thoughts are in our world here on machine bindings. After the practice that I have done and seeing how much I have improved. I know that my binding by machine isnt any more or less effective than hand binding is. It stands up to washing, and if done well it looks great. I always try to either blend the thread or make it stand out or even match the thread used for the quilting.

Another thought is that with the general move to more machine quilting skills/categories, why is machine binding not considered "good enough" for a show.

:) Thanks in advance for a good discussion on this :)

I don't know why it's not accepted either. My grandmother machine-bound every quilt she ever made as far as I can tell, so it's not THAT new of a concept.

I machine bind all of my quilts too, for the same reasons you do. I often use decorative stitches and I think when it's done well it adds to a quilt's appearance.

Maybe it IS acceptable at certain shows? I have only ever entered one quilt into a "show" but it was just the local fair. I did win a ribbon though! But I didn't get any sort of scorecard (just some nice comments scribbled on the back of my ID card that was pinned to the quilt) so I don't know if my machine binding knocked points off or not.

I don't know why it's not acceptable. I was about to say that I prefer the look of hand-binding, but on further consideration that could be because I've never done a binding by machine that didn't look atrocious! :p I enjoy doing it by hand so I don't mind... but sometimes it would be nice to get it done faster by machine.

Carolyn, I totally agree with you. I don't get why quilt shows don't allow machine binding.
I can't do a lot of handwork because of my carpal tunnel so I do all my bindings by machine.
I'm pretty happy with my binding. Not planning to enter shows because it's not my thing
but if I did I would be pretty frustrated if they rejected my quilt just because the binding
is not finished by hand. They need to review this aspect of judging a quilt. We'll see how
many years it will take.

I think the requirement of hand binding is the fact that, if done correctly, the stitching is invisible on the back side of the binding, i.e., the stitching is executed well enough that you don't see it when looking at the back side of the quilt. I agree that machine quilting the binding is more and more acceptable and can be done very nicely, but the point at least with show quilts is to not see any binding stitches.

Christine
Cedar Valley Quilts
www.cedarvalleyquilts.com

My machine binding sucks. When I see it done well, I am in admiration. I'm getting better, but I do not like destroying a perfectly great looking quilt with shoddy binding. i practice on kid quilts. They don't care ;-)

I agree, my machine binding is atrocious! What I like about quilting is that there is some forgiveness in not having perfectly straight seams. That said I also avoid hand sewing at all costs. I only hand bind because I like the look but the last queen size I did took me over 12 hours to bind the back. It's not my strong suit. I have seen some machine binding that looked beautiful and I think it'd be kinda the same as appliqueing over blocks to accentuate lines. Just my .02. I say, if it works for you then go for it, quilt police can party somewhere else.

I machine stitch all of my bindings... For several reasons... I get more stitches per inch and perfect thread tension, plus by the time I get to a binding ... I am really ready to be done with the quilt.

I think I ran into the only show that did not find a machine stitched binding a fault. One of my quilts was entered in a show and it took top prize. Granted the show was not Houston or a major national show, but I was stunned.

If you hate doing it, why not hire someone to do it for you, especially if you want to enter the quilt in a show? I have had several quilters hire me to sew binding on their quilts. I enjoy it.

Let me correct a misunderstanding. Machine binding is accepted in show quilts. It is judged with the same standards as hand binding.