Mini Quilts and Machine Binding

After a sewing marathon yesterday, I finally finished those three wall hangings to be sent to Ukraine. It is impossible to get a decent picture after dark, and unfortunately the quilts are now forever out of my hands and over the ocean somewhere. So I did the best I could do.

 I do not normally do modern colors like that, but I really loved them after I was done. Maybe more in my future? I don't know. That plaid one just really hit a soft spot with me.

My favorite part of the project was the scrappy binding. I had not tried that before, but I loved it. It used up almost all the scraps leftover from the quilting, and it took just a little more time. I think it was worth it.

I have had a dread of machine binding for a while. Give me enough time, and binding by hand is just fine. But time was not on my side yesterday. I think I figured out the secret to acceptable machine binding.

First, you might want to leave a little bit extra around the edge when you are trimming away the extra batting. You will get a firmer edge that way.

Sew the binding onto the wrong side of the quilt (counter-intuitive, I know), matching raw edges. I use a double fold binding, by the way.

Press open the seam you just made to make things nice and flat. Be careful if you are not using cotton batting. You may have a mess if the iron touches it.

Then flip the binding over to the front, just over the line of stitching you just made. I had to actually turn my binding under once because at 3", it was too wide. I should have cut it narrower. Anyway, the key is to diligently use your guide lines on your machine's throat plate, going slowly enough that you absolutely control the width of binding feeding through. A blind-stitch foot or edge stitch foot is really handy here and will enable you to concentrate on keeping the right edge of binding aligned with your machine's guide line.

So you are now ready to sew the next line of stitching on the right side of your quilt. You want your needle to be going into the binding just over the left edge. Adjust your needle appropriately.  If you keep your eye on those guide lines (my binding here was at the 3/8" line), you will end up with all the binding attached and straight lines on the front and the back. Pretty! And there is no guesswork involved as in previous attempts when I would get to the end, turn it over, and discover that there were ugly holes where I missed stitches. No more!

So follow your guide lines!

I did not mention corners--that's another topic. And there should be lots of pictures. I don't have those right now, but maybe soon...

And if anyone out there has suggestions on decent lighting for late night photo shoots, please share!