I love the binding part! I sew a little, then flip it around to look at the perfect finished edge :oops: Well...what I hope is a "perfect" finished edge :roll:

Dang! Maggie and Mama, you both live a far stretch from SW MN, or I'd come bind with you. I, too, find it relaxing, and when I go visit my sister in Montana, more often than not, she has a quilt that either needs binding or is in the prcess of being bound, and I'll pick up where she left off...our techniques are very similar.

Jojo

Kara, I like your advice :!:

Jojo

Maggiebooboo, the quilt is lovely! The batiks are beautiful!

Jojo

I toosew my bindings on by machine. I dont hand sew anything i dont have to. but my quilts are made to be used and not for show so i dont feel that i have to hand stitch the bindind down on the back. once i learned how to join the two ends together in the first stitching i was a lot happier with the results. Do you all use the French fold binding? Except for curved bindings thats what i use.

Oh welcome to my world. I hate binding as well and always seem to mess up a perfectly good quilt. Now I know the solution, break open a beer.

I saw a binding tool in a Clotilde catalog today. It is a wooden tube that flares out on each end to keep the binding wound in the middle. A string or ribbon goes through it and the quilter wears it around her neck while attaching the binding to the quilt. This keeps it from dragging on the floor and picking up dust, dirt and dog hair. The tube just spins as the binding rolls off of it. I have a vague memory of someone substituting an empty toilet paper roll and using it on a string around the neck in the same fashion. That is certainly cheaper. I never remember to try it.

I pin a plastic bag to the narrow end of my ironing board and as I iron the binding it folds down into the bag all ready to go.

I have trouble binding as well. But I love prairie points although I think of them as mountains as i live in the NE Tennessee Smokey Mountains. Also I have put half clam shells on a quilt as well. This is my preferred "binding" and I am sure there are many other creative ways to edge quilts to avoid the traditional binding and add even more interest.