I'm making binding for the first time and I'm a little confused. Everywhere I've seen instructions it indicates to hand stitch the back side of the binding down to the quilt? Why hand stitch? The quilt I'm making is going to be a pretty heavily used one, and it seems like a machine stitched binding would hold up better.

I am no expert. But I think for the binding you want to blindn stictch in the back so it doesn't show in the front of your quilt.
That is what I was told :-)

I don't hand sew mine. On quilterstv.com (I think), there was a woman who showed how you can do it on the sewing machine. After sewing it on. Fold it to the back. Then, sew in the ditch on the front making sure that you have enough on the back for the bobbin thread to be on it. Am I making any sense?

http://www.quilterstv.com/?bcpid=133...s_&_techniques


Maybe this will help.

I do both, sewing on the machine & hand sewing. If the quilt is for a younger person, then I sew it on the machine. If it is for an adult, then I hand sew it. I guess I just learned to hand sew them & I get a lot of pleasure out of doing it. Either way will do just fine. Good Luck. :D

I do the same as shellyp. I machine stitch the binding to the front, then on my ironing board I fold it over to the back, then secure it to the quilt using Wundaweb (iron on hemming web/fusible web/ not sure what you call it in the US). I found this better than pinning as I got a straighter line, held it down well and made sure it was covering the stitching that I had done from the front. Then you go back to the machine and stitch in the ditch from the front.

I am no expert either, and I'm sure some of the others on here will tell you more on the reasons, but I think hand stitching the binding on the back is the more 'traditional' way of doing it, so that you don't see the stitching on the binding on the back. When I have been to quilt shows they are all done like this.

Perfect! Thank you so much!

as Loretta and several others in the thread she linked, I also blind stitch one side of my binding. It is more traditional but hardcore purists hand stitch both sides. That's a lot of time!

If I am in a rush, I also make an oversized back for kids and roll the excess over onto the front. It holds up to frequent washings well, is easy, and saves a lot of time.

If you're looking for really nice finish, the blind stitch is it.

I've seen using the backing as binding called mock binding and self binding.

Loretta, that's a great question...I've only heard it called a rolled binding but found this link that calls it easy binding. My grandmother used to do it even for her heirlooms, she never did regular binding. She did blind stitch to the best of her ability rather than using a machine to finish. Mom doesn't like it and only uses purist methods. I'm kind of a mix of everyone I know who quilts. I pick and choose what works best for me rather than sticking to one specific type. For a really fast quilt I have rolled the binding and used my machine to close.

http://www.lorettaalvarado.com/binding.htm

Hope you find this site helpful for those interested. :D