Bindings
 

How long did it take before your bindings were decent looking?

I "threw together" two pot holders last night for our daughter-in-law's birthday today. The potholders were FINE - piece of cake! The bindings were . . . (shudder) . . . awful. I won't go into all the mistakes I made; just too depressing. I even accidently "trimmed" one corner of the binding and had to rip all that out, make an additional piece of binding, then try sewing it on, which only made the corner bulkier and more out of control.

I have the sweetest daughter-in-law - while I was bemoaning all my mistakes, she said she didn't see a thing wrong with them!!

Still . . . it's gotta get better than this, or I'm going back to knitting! :P

I gotta tell ya, I've been quilting a long time and binding is still my weakest skill! I have found that using bias binding has been more forgiving for me. And if I hand sew the back on, it always looks so nice. However, I have a nerve damage in my neck, right shoulder, elbow and wrist from a car accident over 25 years ago. Anything that requires fine motor skills such as hand sewing is difficult to do. My fingers go numb within the first 5 stitches and I no longer can hang onto the needle. I have done the hand sewing for special items but it takes me almost longer to hand sew it on than it does for me to cut, piece and quilt the darn thing!!!

My first few bindings were pretty awful, but then I practiced on a few sample squares using tips I had gleaned other quilters. Now they are easy for me. (I too "trimmed" a corner once! shudder.... never again.)

One of my problems was controlling the quilt top. Finally I developed an approach that most quilters don't use, but that works really well for me. Instead of cutting the quilt top edges, I use a Sharpie to *mark* the quilt edge. When I machine sew the binding on, I act as if that marking were the quilt edge. What this does for me is control the quilt edge so that edge is not wiggling on me as I sew; the quilt is very stable.

Regarding mitering corners, I *finally* realized that however much a seam allowance I am sewing for the binding is *exactly* how far away from the edge I need to stop. It needs to be EXACT; not one stitch more or one stitch less. Once I mastered that idea, my miters started looking nice.

I do not prewash fabrics, and the same applies to binding fabric. The sizing in unwashed fabric helps stabilize the binding. If you prewash fabrics, you *really* need to starch your binding fabric before cutting it (assuming you are doing straight-grain and not bias binding) into strips. This keeps the binding fabric from stretching and twisting while you sew. I do not use bias binding unless the quilt edge is scalloped or curved.

Hope some of these tips help.

I have much more trouble binding smaller things than I do a quilt. Also, I have LOTS of trouble with purchased binding. I only use my own now.

I've started sewing the binding on the back first
I then fold it over to the front and stitch down on the line sewn. I have a long 5 inch needle that I hold down the front and point it right in the seam line, I aim right for the needle when sewing, works for me.
From the back it looks like a thicker thread and the front looks great.
Syl

Mine became pretty darn perfect once I started using the glue technique

What's the glue technique?? :shock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2hWQ5-ZccE

Love glue basting! It is also a great way to match prints for borders.

I'm a newbie (only made 3 quilts). My DD is going to show me how to do a continuous binding strip. She does beautiful work so I'm looking forward to finishing the quilt I'm working on now so she can show me her technique.

Binding is my downfall too. I have a friend that loves to do binding and she is good at doing binding, but she loves hand work. On another note, the ad on the bottom of my screen is for a binding machine (for paper). Computer is too smart for its own good.

mltquilt