Binding Issues

stitching the binding with the JUKI Exceed 600

I'm directionally challenged. I mix up my left and right. It's only been made worse by living for the last 25 years in a country that does many things the other way round. Anyway, this usually trips me up when I'm sewing the binding. It's the last diagonal join where I'm machine stitching the binding down on the quilt top. I like the diagonal join as it spreads out the fabric and makes a nice neat finish. But I almost always struggle with this particular step of the binding process. I get the fabric ends turned the wrong way around and have to unpick it and try again. 

JUKI Exceed 600 sewing on the binding

A while ago I found a double fold binding tutorial from Megan at Canoe Ridge Creations and saved it on my pinterest board. I tried it today and my diagonal join came together perfectly, the very first time. If you're looking for a brilliant binding tutorial for the directionally challenged here it is!

Bottom Line #634 Baby Blue perfect for hand sewing the binding

When it comes to hand stitching the binding Bottom Line thread from Superior Threads is a good choice. Bottom Line was created as a bobbin thread. It's a fine thread that practically disappears and with 55 colours to choose from it's easy to match your fabric. It makes your stitching look great, because no one can see it! The other feature that I like is that Bottom Line won't tangle and knot up. Sometimes when I'm sewing the binding down the thread knots and I have to stop and cut out the knot and start again. I never have that problem when I'm using Bottom Line thread.

binding on the Star of the Sea Quilt

The binding came together so quickly this time! I'm happy that it's all ready ahead of time for baby May.

Binding Issues

I have a love-hate relationship with binding. I do love the process of holding the fabrics together as I hand sew the binding to the backing, turning the fabric over to peek, inch by inch at the progress on the front. I just hate how long it takes. I quilted the thing in 20 minutes, once it was loaded on the frame. But it took me over two hours to hand sew the last bit of the binding down after it had been machine stitched to the front.

I usually use a double-folded strip for binding. Also called French Binding, the 2 inch strips are cut on the diagonal - it uses lots of fabric but for a special project, I think it's worth it. For this quilt, I cut 2 inch strips from various batiks that I used in the quilt and pieced them together. This carried on the scrappy feel of the project.

I used MasterPiece #117 Smart Alex to hand sew the binding. This thread is so fine that it disappears into the fabric. The people at Superior Threads have taken the trouble to give it a good twist which means that it doesn't knot the way some threads do when you're hand sewing the binding.

In the past I've struggled with a satisfying width for binding. In the early days I tended to go rather wide. But a few years ago I hosted a strippy quilt challenge with British Patchwork & Quilting Magazine - the prize was one of my quilting frames. There were nearly 100 participants who created strippy quilts to donate to Project Linus. When we met with the editors to choose the winning quilts, I was struck with the big difference the binding made. The narrow bindings looked better. So here's a question for any readers. I'd love to know what you think is the ideal binding width. Any comments would be most appreciated.