Thanks for all the advice-- it helped alot. I'm nervous and excited to be so close to finishing. Then I'm on to the other 8 quilt kits my sister has sent me. Perhaps I'll get bold after awhile and design one myself.

I also sewing the binding to the back, and use a decorative stitch to sew it down. I really like the extra little touch it gives to my quilt.

How many of you hand stitch the binding? have used a nylon invisible thread, zig zag, straight stitch or use a decorative stitch on your machine to finish the binding.
Do any of you use a glue or iron on such as Steam a Seam to get the binding straight before stitching? Please let the rest of us know what works best for you.

I machine sew my biinding on the front before trimming batting and backing. Then I slice them off nicely and hand sew the to back.

Since most of my quilting has been hand quilting, I've also done the binding by hand. On the ones I've done lately, branching out into machine piecing, I've attached the binding to the front by machine and done the back side of the binding by hand. These have either been tied or hand quilted. Still not ready to tackle machine quilting!

If you wait to trim after sewing the binding on the front- how do you make sure your quilt edges are true?

I cut the edges even first, then sew a basting stitch all the way around--nothing fancy--but a little less than 1/4-inch so that the binding covers it. I just think it holds the edges of the sandwich together so I catch everything when I sew the binding.

I zig zag round the edges of the quilt before I put the binding on, I find it makes it easier to put the binding on

I mark the edges (with a Sharpie) instead of cutting them, then line up my binding with the marks.

I usually hand stitch. The only machine stitching option that works for me is this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wprg5...os=axOUdkCOtDs