hutch farm

I thought I read somewhere that it's ok to sew your binding strip along the edge of your quilt before you square it up. Am I way off base with that? In otherwords, can I just leave my quilt sandwich bigger around the edges (not square it up), sew on the binding and then trim? Is there any advantage to this? Thanks!!

juneayerza

How would you know where to sew the binding, or am I missing something here?

hutch farm

Well, I ran a basting stitch all the way around the edge of the quilt top.

Mdegenhart

You'd cut your binding off when you trimmed. It should be squared up first.

hutch farm

Obviously I had something mixed up big time. Thank you for clearing that up for me.

Tartan

You could draw a line all around your quilt for a 1/4 inch seam to run the binding along. You could trim along the line and the raw edges of the binding after sewing. I like to use my large squares and rulers to square up my quilted sandwich and trim before putting the binding on myself.

daisydawg

I sew my bindings on then trim. Started doing it this way after watching a tutorial.

PaperPrincess

That's the way Fons & Porter books do it. I tried it once, but didn't like it.

nabobw

You must square the top up before you sandwich it. You then sew the binding on, and by doing it this way you make sure to have batting in the binding, then you cut off the batting and backing to the left of the binding. This is not squaring up the quilt as the top has already been squared up.

elizajo

I read a suggestion somewhere to use this technique on quilt tops without borders. It will preserve the pieced seams and the fabric edges while the quilt is being handled during the quilting process.