OK now I see why Sharon Schamber gets prizes for her quilts. If I put my quilt on the floor I would have dogs on it. lol
Maybe someday when I have a room I can totally close them out of.

Oh thank you so much for the pdf! I have saved it to print out. You are a doll! LOL

I never follow the "rules." It's my quilt. I'll do it how I want.

Right. As I understand it, this is an important point with quilt judging, which is kind of the standards we sort of try to go by mostly in our ordinary everyday fun of quilting, (although of course we can actually do anything we want - "It's our quilt!")

So here's what I do - When I have sewn on my front side of the binding, and am ready to go to the back and handstitch down the back half of the binding, I trim my quilt sandwich not on the line of the edge of my quilt top, but rather about 1/16" or even 1/8" out from the edge of the quilt top,
- making a tiny bit more batting and backing to cover with the binding as I sew along on the back.

I get great results with this extra bit of "filling" for my binding.

I have to way in here, as a quilting teacher, my answer is yes, it does need to be the same on both sides. It is easy to do. I usually use a 2 1/4" strips for binding and do the double fold method (this is the best method to use since it usually the binding that wears the most on any quilt) then machine sew it to the front of the quilt using a full quarter inch seam allowance and mitered corners, then trim backing and batting to equal a little less than half of your binding when it is folded out flat. Then, using the hidden running stitch hand sew the binding to the back of your quilt using the stitching line from the front as your guide to place your needle as close to the bottom side of the front stitching as possible. This is the way I do it, the way I teach it and the way several quilters I know who do show their quilts do it. Hope this helps. Good luck with your binding.

Hugs, Gail

Has anyone ever used less than 2 1/2 for the starting width of your binding? What were the results? Have you used 2 1/4? Is this unacceptable?


I have a few tops that I am finishing now that I hope to have judged in a show in the fall and I never really thought about the dos and don'ts for binding. I usually do my binding like many have already mentioned but now I'm going to look up the tutorial. Thanks for bringng this up!

Thanks Gail -guess we posted at the same time.

[quote=kayquilt]what site is Sharon Schamber's site
http://www.sharonschamber.com/free%2...ng%20Class.pdf

[quote=costumegirl]Has anyone ever used less than 2 1/2 for the starting width of your binding? What were the results? Have you used 2 1/4? Is this unacceptable?


The last binding I did I used 2 1/4 binding and glued it down. So far this has worked the best for me. I'm going to experiment with different sizes and such and see which method I like best.

As others have replied, I use Sharon Schamber's method and OMG!! It comes out so nicely!! It does need to be a bit wider on the back so that it covers the line of sewing from the front.

I think that being even and totally filled with the quilt/batting is most important.