Hello ladies,

it only took me five month to make the sandwich... aha... life has a way to catch up with us... btw, thank you for all the great tips to make the sandwich; it was a cinch.

Now, I'm wondering how far from the edges do I quilt so I can sew the binding on. :?:

Thank you and happy holidays!

Happy Holidays to you too :D:D:D

If you are stippling or SID, you could probably go just to the seamline or a little past. If you are doing other designs you may not want them broken up, so stay back 1/2" or so. It kinda depends on your design and how far apart your batting says the quilting can be.

I have never but a binding on before; 1st quilt. I think it's 2 inch max, the batting.

What if I decide to hand tie it instead of sewing it? Same rules?

Thanks again :)

Some people don't add binding if they are hand tying. This is commonly called the birthing method. The backing is placed right side up, batting and the top is face down, when sewing around the edges you leave a large opening for turning and hand/machine sew the opening closed. Then you hand tie it.
Some battings do not do well in hand tying...lofty polyesters for example. They will migrate and bunch up during laundring.
I would be more concerned over how far apart they recommend the quilting to be. That would also determine whether or not it would be good for hand tying.

My neighbor made quilts this fall for Christmas presents for her grandkids. She doesn't take constructive critism very well so I kept my mouth shut but she used the batting that says it should be quilted or tied every 4"-6" and she did it more like 8"-10" apart. I wonder what they will look like after they've been used and washed a couple of times..

I can tell her exactly what it will look like, which isn't good! :( I know this from experience. The first quilt I made was a bargello quilt for a wedding. I didn't know anything about quilting and I am entirely self taught. (Didn't take a class until I'd been quilting for 12 years.) I had no idea that you were supposed to quilt every 4-6 inches and so I quilted a heart here, a heart there...needless to say when she washed it the batting bunched up and ended up somewhere at the bottom of the quilt. :oops: Trust me, that's a mistake you only make once!!!

As for the quilting and how far to do it from the edge, I agree with Amma. (I seem to say that a lot!) If I'm doing an all-over pattern or a meander type stitch I will go all the way to the edge and even a tad over. If I have a specific pattern I make sure it is half an inch from the edge. Once done, I then stitch 1/8th inch from the edge as a sort of stabilizer using a regular running stitch. This stitching gets covered up by the binding so no one knows it's even there but me.

My batting states that I should quilt 3 inches apart or less.

It only says to use it for hand quilting, but I have tested it with a smaller project and it does just fine machine quilted.

It's wool straight off the sheep just about; love that stuff. No dust mites which I'm allergic to and a natural fire retardant.

I guess to hand knot every 3 inches sounds pretty boring to me after the 10th knot so I guess I'll do it on the machine and probably FM. I just have to think how to stitch it now.

Any suggestions :?: Here is the quilt below and I have a yellow variegated thread I will use front and back; so it will show a lot on the red. You can see the back colors sticking out the bottom edge loud and clear :)

I don't know what I will do on the border yet, black or the same yellow variegated thread. :?

I try to NOT quilt where the binding will be (with, depending on how exactly you do it, will be about 1/4" - 1/2" onto the quilt top edge. The reason, it's easy enough to attach the binding strip by machine. But when you're hand turning it down onto the back, it's much easier to get the handwork done if you're not going over machine FMQ. A lot of time my stitches would show on the front, because of going over existing stitches and them holding the sandwich together so tightly, whereas when there's no stitching, it's a piece of cake to hide the binding stitches.

So even if that doesn't make sense, stop at about 1/2" from all edges and you won't be annoyed later :D

So far I haven't had that problem yet, but it is something I will definitely watch out for from now on. Thank you for the head's up!

I think a meander stitch would work great for this quilt. Nothing too close together or it will stiffen right up and be more like a board than a snuggly quilt. You could also do a stitch-in-the-ditch or outline a few blocks here and there. I wouldn't do anything too fancy because I don't think it would show. Although, if you want to practice feathers or something like that, this would be a great quilt to do that on simply because the quilting isn't likely to show and no one will notice any mistakes. ;)

It's a pretty quilt no matter how you quilt it.