Those quilting lines look pretty straight to me. I wish mine looked that good. Great job, Caley.

My first quilt is finished. I finished the binding yesterday. But I had a great deal of difficulty with the invisible joining part, and ended up just bashing the two binding ends together. I did machine binding, as my fingers don't like the needle work anymore..

I had watched three videos on how to do that diagonal binding joining after you circled the entire quilt. But for some reason I could not figure out how to place the two ends of the fabric to get that done, even with all that video help. It's just a problem with how I see things, or it could have just been a bad day. Maybe my second quilt will have that finished look, instead of the straight joining seam with lots of stitching to hold things together.

Overall, I am happy. It is at least functional. as a lap quilt. It measures 41 x 54 inches, so it is small. Wonder how anyone makes the larger queen sized quilts? Must be a real challenge to manipulate such a great amount of fabric through the sewing machine.

Thanks for all the help. I definitely needed all the suggestions on how to quilt, and all the various tools required. Still need some of those tools, like the wonder clips. I used small alligator clips normally used in electrical work. They worked well to secure the binding fabric to the edge until sewn.

That quilt turned out so pretty & I'm very, very proud of you. You've come a long way in a short period of time. Keep up the good work!

Well done and grats, that's a super first project!!

It took me years to get that final seam down. I'll have to take pictures next time I do one.

Some people don't need a lot of space to work with, I need at least 1 foot total (six inches each side) myself. So I put on the binding first on the top of the quilt, I use the french double fold technique so have the rough edges all to the outside on the top, sew around and miter my corners. First I make sure my end is cut at the right angle, and I start in the middle of one of the long sides, leaving about that 6-8" tail. I miter the corners. When I come to the meeting point, again I stop sewing about 6 inches shorter than I want. I unfold the binding and lay the ends over each other, using a pencil to draw the angle from that end I made sure was correct.

Here's the slightly tricky part, you cut 1/2" further (extra, remember extra for the seam!) towards the end of the binding from where you drew your line because that is your seam allowance (1/4" from each side). If you cut the wrong way, well, all is not lost, you just put another piece in, line it up again, and trim down. But if you do it correctly, your binding will be perfect each time.

After you sew the seam, refold your binding, sew that final foot of seam, flip to the back and my prefered treatment is hand blind stitch down.

Caley, that looks wonderful! If you saw my first quilt I think you would faint! lol :)

I still struggle with that final join on bindings.