Machine Stitching Your Binding.

Hi, Welcome to my Blog.

In this blog I am going to share how I machine stitch my bindings. I read several Yahoo quilting groups and in one of them there has been a discussion about the pros and cons of machine stitching your binding. Well what ever side of the debate you fall on is great. I personally machine stitch all of my binding. I know I will never enter any of my quilts to be judged in a show. I make my quilts for rough wear and tear, so it just makes sense to me to machine stitch. With that I was explaining how I do mine and offered to show how as it really is pretty simple, I had someone ask me to post pictures, So with out further ado, this is how I machine stitch my bindings, complete with photos.

The fabric I have used is a junk piece that I was using to work out the bugs in my quilting machine so pardon the Ugly factor please!

I start on the BACK of the fabric, lining up the cut edge of the fabric and the cut edge of the binding, I then stitch 1/4 inch from the edge until I reach a corner (I do leave a 10 inch tail at the start and stop of the binding for joining) as this is a sample piece I did do that here.

When I get 1/4 inch from the corner I turn the quilt and sew off the edge (see the arrow!)

this is the start to my mitered corner.

I then fold the fabric up and then back down (see the next picture)


Once I fold the binding back down I continue to stitch the edge down as before starting at the corner.

Once I have sewn the binding all the way around to the back of the quilt I then flip the quilt over and wrap the binding to the front of the quilt. I place the foot right on the edge of the fold of the binding and start to sew, slowly, if you decide to be a speed demon you will fall off the edge and have an opening. When you get to the corner, neatly fold you miter and stitch.

This is a good shot of how it is done, this is the Front of the quilt. Mitered corner, and top stitched binding. You can see how close to the edge I sew when I stitch it down. Also, I used white thread in the photos, when doing a real quilt I would try to match the thread on top with the binding color and the bobbin thread to the backing color.

This is the back of the quilt. OK so I made a little good, I should have sewn in more than a 1/4 inch on this one, or not wrapped the binding so far over on the front. Ideally you want you front stitch to land in the ditch on the back, you can see where I missed it. In my defense I was not using my usual machine but my daughters Featherweight! I also think that in the case of a quick child's quilt, this would be OK. But for something more special I would try to make this neater.

So, for those of you who came from the Learn Quilting Yahoo group I hope this helps. And be sure to ask if you have anymore questions!

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to come back again.

Have a wonderful day

Ginny