Thanks all for the great comments, encouragement, and helpful hints. We are fascinated that people literally all over the world have seen our quilt and are as happy about it as we are.

Amma - it occured to me that the binding stitch might help hold the quilting down - AFTER the quilting was done and we were tacking down the binding. Hopefully we will continue to learn as we go.

Darren

Looks great!

Great job.

pretty, pretty!

Very nice, keep up the good work.

Sooo pretty!!!

I have found that some people really frown on bringing the backing to the front for binding. Quilts of Valor and Linus Quilts will not accept them. But we can do as we please. I have made dozens that way. I always sewed them down with a decorative stitch.

But when I turn the corners as Charlee suggested, I always make snub nosed corners. I take that back. One time I made a perfect corner like that. I should have taken a picture! I make them anyway. Who cares.

But my sister showed me another way that makes really square corners every time. When you have folded the back over, turned it under and stitched to a corner, stop about a seam's width from the corner, keeping the needle down. The back/binding fabric is folded to the end. Turn the bottom corner up on the diagonal so the fold is even with the edge of the quilt. Now turn the next side of the back/binding up and turn the edge under to sew down the next side.

This works best if the back is trimmed to the exact width needed, and you may want to trim a little excess out of that corner. It gets kind of bunchy. Make one, and you will be able to tell where to trim.

Good luck on your back binding.

Your quilt is so pretty.

tut
 

I believe Missouri star quilt has a good tut on binding that is done with the backing folded over the front. I think is is a baby quilt. Also fat quarter shops has a tut, and maybe the gourmet quilter. I would send you the links but I am so short on computer skills I hide my face in shame . O like this method when I can' decide on a binding that the color suits me.
I am the queen of the galloping horse..............................

You are doing a good job.

The problem with bring the backing forward as binding IF YOU QUILT HEAVILY is that there tends to be 'extra' binding relative to the quilt. You didn't on this, so no problem. As far as I can see, quilting under the binding is only a problem if you are quilting heavily enough that the edges get too stiff, OR if you have an elaborate quilting design which gets cut off in the process. Older bats required heavy quilting. Modern ones don't. If you are not entering major quilt shows, the whole issue is null.