Binding Boo Boo

 
free motion quilting

A while back I made a simple white on white lap size quilt that was mostly random bits of free motion quilting. I made it to be used as a photo back drop and you can see it in many of my blog photos now. But I must have been having a good day, praying a bunch, or just plain lucky because when I bound it, this happened:

Do you see it? Maybe you can see it better with some colored paper strategically placed so you can tell where one white bit ends and another begins.
 That's right, I didn't have enough binding to completely join the ends together once I went all the way around the quilt!
 But it was just enough to join and hide the gap inside the binding! I am thankful I didn't have to cut more binding for such a tiny gap. Binding does frustrate me a bit. Not necessarily the sewing it on, and I do have a nice method for finishing it by machine that I use on some quilts, but getting the seams in the binding strips placed just so. It seems that many times I either have way too much or way too little binding, or the seams joining the strips land right at a corner or six inches from where I'll be joining the ends. I've taken to laying the binding out along the edges before I start to sew (I don't pin the binding before I stitch it on) and leaving an inch or so at the corners, I see where the seams of the strips are going to land and adjust the beginning point accordingly.

These kinds of serendipitous "almost mistakes" never seem to happen on important projects though! That's when my binding is 2 inches too short or I run out of thread with 6 inches left to quilt, or some such frustration! But I try to not let it get to me.

This quilt was a lot of fun to do though as I had no real plan for the quilting and just stitched a design until I got bored with it and then tried something different. It is also a great backdrop for pictures, not to mention great practice!

3 comments:

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  2. I wondered what was behind the pillow you made for your friends. (Because they were both white, at first I thought it was a continuation of the pillow. But then I realized it was just my eyesight and I needed to refocus my glasses!)

    Your pebbles are perfect! One day ... before I die ... mine will be that good. More practice coming up.

    Do you use Sharon Shamber's binding method? On some (not all) I use it.

    Robin

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    1. My pebbles are not perfect. All pebbles look better when you step away from the quilt! I strive to stay consistently inconsistent, a term used by a quilting instructor far better than me.

      As far as binding; are you referring to Sharon's method of gluing it on before you stitch? I don't do that, but I have glued it down after the initial stitching, prior to finishing it either by hand or machine. In fact, there's a certain important quilt that still has a large portion of the binding glued down and is in need of stitching, but a deadline loomed and the back didn't show in the pictures....

      My binding technique is to stitch the binding onto the back of the quilt and then stitch it down on the front to finish it by machine with a teeny tiny blanket stitch, usually using monopoly or very fine thread! It looks great and is very hard to see that it wasn't finished by hand. Though I still finish the binding of special quilts by hand.

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