The Finishing Touches

The finishing touches that I need to put on my quilt is to put the binding on the edges. The binding is like the cap that goes around the edge so that you don’t see all the layers sandwiched together. I decided to go with one color for the binding because I thought that if I used lots of colors together, it would take the attention away from the main part of the quilt. I am going to use the same pink fabric I used for the backing for the binding. I think this will give it a clean finished look as I am hoping it will look like I carried the backing over the edges. One way to make your binding strips is to piece together a bunch of scraps or pre-cut strips. However, I was lucky in the fact that I had lots of leftover fabric from the backing and I was able to cut out strips that were long enough so I did not have to sew the strips together.

To learn how to do the binding I watched two different videos. Each video showed a different method to attach the binding. The first video goes over stitching the binding on with a machine and the second goes over stitching the binding on by hand

The video Finishing Your Quilt- Binding (seen below) was very helpful with knowing how to prep all the materials I was going to need. I found it very helpful that she walked through how to calculate how much fabric I was going to need for the binding. I was able to follow her calculations and plug in my own numbers. As well, I found this video good for learning how to press the binding strips, trim the excess batting, and fold the corners. However, I did not feel this video provided me with enough direction on how to hold the binding once you folded it over to the front. I think it is important to know how to hold the binding because holding it properly would allow me to sew it and still have a clean seam. I knew getting a clean seam would be a challenge with it being a long seam.

The following video shows how to hand stich the binding on the front but does not show how to prep anything or machine stich the binding to the back. Alone neither of these videos have enough information for me to successfully put the binding on my quilt. But by watching both videos I was able to pair the methods and information from both together to find something that will work for me. I am going to machine stitch the binding on the back and then hand stitch the binding on the front. I like that in the hand stitching video she showed a few different stitches I could do. I would not have known what stitch to do but because she offered her personal opinion as to what one is best, I am going to go ahead and follow her lead.

ECMP 355 and anyone else following my blog I would like to present to you my finished quilt!!!

My Finished Quilt!!