Binding Made & a Great Tip

I always like to make the binding for a quilt either before I even start piecing or when I have the fabric cut for the quilt and know I will have enough left over. By the time I have finished quilting I just want to trim up the edges and get that binding sewn.  I just finished preparing the binding for the first Frozen quilt and thought I would use a great tip I picked up from the wonderful Finishing Schools: Edges & Bindings with Mimi Dietrich Craftsy class.

When Mimi has made her binding she rolls it up on a paper towel tube. She either leaves a few paper towels on it or covers it in fabric. I chose to cover mine in a piece of leftover background block fabric and then rolled up the miles of binding. Usually, I simply roll the finished binding into a snail shell coil but then it gets rather frayed on the edges, comes undone, or gets squished. By using the tube method the binding stays neat and tidy and there is also the benefit of it staying that way while you sew it on!  I always end up with lengths of binding wrapped around the wheels and base of my chair so I'm excited to not have to fight it while I sew it on! Mimi suggests you can store the tubes of ready-to-go binding in a pretty basket or container so they are easy to find when you are finished quilting. I loved this class (and I bought her book too!) and I know I will use so many of her finishing techniques on my future quilts. I hope Santa brings me the piping foot I asked for because a piped binding is the first one I want to try!

Comments

[Maureen]

First of all, I NEED to know what fabric that is for the binding. It is soooooooo pretty. Second, I just read a binding tip I think on From the Blue Chair who says she wraps the binding on an empty thread cone or spool and puts it on the 2nd spool pin on her machine when she is attaching it, which also keeps it nice and tidy and slowly feeds it. She doesn't pin the binding around the quilt before attaching it. I would like to try this because I hate getting stabbed by a zillion pins when sewing on the binding! With my walking foot now working better, I think I will try this on my next quilt. :)