Handsewing the binding...
 

So - how long does it take you? I naively thought I could reach a pace of 1-1.5 inches/minute. Not so much as it turns out. Taking out the time spent purely socializing, at came to about 0.5 inches per minute - which meant 8 hours this weekend putting on a binding for our show. We have to turn in the quilts tonight, so it had to get done - unfortunately in one long weekend.

Hopefully over time, it will get easier for me. I've not done a lot of bindings yet. I did find that after finishing a lethal margarita at the hockey team pool party yesterday that I became much less critical of my work...

This quilt will be display only. I need a new thimble as I wore out the leather thimble - though I may try adding a leather patch to it to get a little more use out of it. By midnight, I was turning the thimble in odd directions (it is one designed for those of us with longer fingernails).

Cheers, K

I use to be able to sew 5 feet in an hour. It is like hand quilting. You need to be able to rock your needle and get it in the correct location. Everything in life takes practice.

When I do a binding by hand, I lock myself in my room or have no one over and try to make all phone calls quick. That was a while back. Have couple coming up that are small.

Bought 2 new thimbles at JoAnn's Saturday. DH said "You paid how much for that?" My reply was "And you paid how much for that one screw?". LOL!!

Yep, sounds familiar. It takes me eons to hand stitch a binding, but I much prefer the way it looks compared to machine stitching it.

My goal, now that the show deadline is met is to be able to bring quilts with me to hockey practice and games and bind at a leisurely pace. I am paying the price for this weekend... my shoulder is inflamed again (the reason I was so far behind with the quilting in the first place) and I'm stiff. But I did get some variety - ice rink, swim party, in the car, and of course at home...

Cheers, K

I've never really timed myself. I do break it up and usually do it in the evening when I'm watching TV or when I know I'm going to have some sitting time somewhere. I tried doing it in the car - relax I was the passenger - but there was too much jiggling to do it well. It's actually one of my favorite parts of the process but I like fussy stuff to do.

I agree with everything citruscountry said! I love the hand work, too. I'm still putting channels on the back of some of the quilts for our guild show coming up in Sept. Don't enjoy that as much, but it has to be done.

It used to take me quite a while to do my bindings but now, generally I can do the hand stitching part on a queen sized quilt in 2-3 hours. With practice you get faster and better as with most things. It is my favorite part because when its done so is a new quilt :-)

If I was in a hurry I'd buy a blanket
It takes me about 8 hours to do a queen/king. I have a couple of mini-series I watch.

Another person who doesn't really know or worry about how long it takes. But the idea of binding at a hockey arena kind of makes me giggle--because, where I grew up, we played youth hockey outdoors. Hard to bind a quilt woth choppers on. And the indoor arena was just too grungy .

It doesn't matter how long it takes me -- I enjoy the process of hand stitching the binding. I usually take a little nap while the quilt is on my lap too.

For me, threading the needle takes the longest. I love sewing with the real small thin needles (once they are threaded). The stitching goes so quickly (probably because I then have to re-thread the needle again!). But I will put up with that, because sewing is such a delight.

I thread 4 or 5 needles first and then get started. Makes it go a little quicker

I save my hand binding for when I "watch tv", actually hearing it most of the time. It helps keep my hands busy with something besides eating..... so maybe three evenings.

I use (I think they're called milner's needles), and thread 6 or 7 at a time and have them lined up to go so I don't have to break while I'm binding. It is my favorite part, and it goes fairly quickly.

HOLY COW,ckcowl, how big are your stitches? mine are about 3/8"-1/4" and it takes me that long to do one side! I need to watch your method.

I also hand sew the binding and sometimes it has taken the better part of two evenings. I think it is worth it since they do come out perfect.

Ditto, i the nap part too!

Ditto, i the nap part too!

edited
Should say I like the nap part too, one finger typing just isn't for me!

I also sew using a ladder stitch and 3/8 - 1/4" stitches. I don't worry about the time it takes. I'm just concerned with the quality of my work. But I usually try to make sure I don't have tight deadlines. I enjoy handwork so much I am going to try needle turn appliqué soon.

Nancy, get one of the Sewline needle threaders. It threads my number 11's easy peasy. I just had to learn it pokes a fold of thread through so don't just jerk the needle out :) stop and pull the thread on through.

Hand sewing takes time. I'm fairly fast, but still... it isn't going to go as quickly as sewing on a machine. But I have never seen a machine stitched binding that I liked. I've seen some that I could live with for utility quilts, but none that I could really say "Wow... isn't that lovely!" So now I try to find time to hand stitch every binding on every quilt I do.

Hand work may be time consuming but it is by far the most beautiful. I don't mind the hand work.... sewing on the binding or doing the applique. It means that I can sit in the comfy chair beside my DH and enjoy a movie with him. When I'm hand quilting or sewing at one of my machines, he's in the other room by himself. We'll soon be married 50 years and I still enjoy being next to him. You never know how much time you'll still have together so I try not to pass up a chance to share space with him.

As I have arthritic hands, I hand sew the length it takes to use up the thread I put on my needle. Sometimes on a good day I can work thru 2 lengths of thread. I keep my handsewing at my recliner and watch TV while I sew. Seems to go faster and I consider it mindless work as I don't have tax my brain doing it.

I haven't timed it - I just do my hand binding while I'm watching TV over a period of evenings.

I love hand-stitching down my binding. My greatest investment was to buy a box of the small wonder clips. I kept seeing people raving about them about a year or two ago and had no idea what they were. Wasn't completely sold on the idea, but when JoAnn's had them on sale for 50% off, I ordered a box of 50. Wow! Instead of constantly getting poked by straight pins holding my binding in place, I use the wonder clips which I feel makes the job easier and faster.

An average lap quilt takes me about 6-7 hours to bind it. Never calculated how many inches that was per minute or hour. I can usually finish a small baby quilt in one night. A larger toddler quilt might take me two short evenings. A really large quilt may take me up to 4 evenings watching TV while sewing. Since I enjoy this part so much, I don't really think about how long it takes me unless I'm working towards a deadline to get it finished and need to pace my time.

Hand sewing the binding is also my favorite of the quilting experience! I usually do it while watching TV. Baby quilts take one night, larger ones can take two or three nights depending on the shows!

The binding part to me is the grand finale of the quilt.

I machine stitch the front & then to hand sew the back of baby quilts takes me 4-5 hours to complete doing 3/16-1/4" blind stitches.
Sorry to hear your thimble isn't working. I got this open thimble at Joann that works great (even on the rare occasion when I actually have nails). It will fit on any finger or my thumb. Amazon sells them, too.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...XL._SY450_.jpg

Also, I've done the whole tweezers trick, but I found these wonderful John James Gold'n'Glide Milliner Size 10 needles at my LQS & they are amazing! No more tweezers or fighting with the fabric for me. I tried a whole bunch of different needles before someone recommended these & I must say, they seem to be the needle-version of Aurifil thread. They are Teflon coated & just slide through the fabric no problem. Shaved nearly 2 hours off the time it takes me to do binding.

ckcowl - I too would love to learn how you sew so fast. It took me 8 hours to hand sew a quilt with sides of 110", while watching the telly that is.

Back from helping with judging and hanging the show. Lots of amazing quilts on display this weekend.

It was not so much that the thimble wasn't working as that I wore through it at key points.

There are definitely parts of our hockey arena that are grungy. I spent last Saturday in the lobby, so that mitigated much of the grunge. Several people commented on the wisdom of quilting while watching as one can enjoy the warmth of the quilt (even though it was over 90 degrees out).

I'm still perfecting my ladder stitch - and that is what takes some of the extra time - especially when I have to backtrack to get rid of the stitch that comes through to the front.

Fortunately I enjoy handwork, and look forward to doing future quilts in a more relaxed fashion.

I definitely prefer wonder clips over pins for holding the binding in place. But I also find that the ones that look like hair clips hold it a bit tighter.

I'll post a picture of the finished quilt on another thread - now that it is hanging!

Cheers, K