I blind stitch by hand! Love this part of quilting, I have to say, I still get so excited when I am nearly finished putting binding down!

I machine sew the quilt top and top side of the binding. Then I hand quilt it from that point to the finishing of the quilt.

Thanks for all of the replies..hand stitching is SO pretty....I do prefer that look. I just wanted to know what all goes on...and by the way I rashly decided to machine sew the back binding on, and it definitely doesn't look as good as when I hand-sewed the other topper. Lesson learned. At least until I get better and get more experienced with sewing!

I do it all by machine on anything that I know I wouldn't enter into any contests. Which means only one of them in the last year has been hand sewn on the back. :lol:

Sometimes I will bring the backing around to the front as a binding and machine sew it. When I do a separate binding, I sew it to back first, then machine stitch it down in the front, often with a blanket stitch.

I don't have the time to hand quilt....I use my machine.

To me "Hand" is a four letter word! I sew to back and then do a decorate stitch on the front, much easier than trying any other way.

Another one who machine stitch to the front, hand stitch to the back..I like how the stitching "disappears" on the back.

For those very special qults....weddings/anniversarys etc...I would do hand binding but for baby/lap quilts that will get a lot of use, I do a machine binding. Sometimes I pull the backing up to the front, fold and stitch down....looks good and easy too!! Ususally tho, I sew on a seperate 2 1/2 inch binding, fold and then topstich down.

jodi in leavenworth

I bind by machine, always.