I just wrote a quilt guild newsletter article about why you should enter a quilt into the quilt show judged entry category even if you've received suggestions (like I have) to improve your binding skills.
For those of you have seen my quilts in shows, you probably don't realize how bad my binding can be. So let's get real, this blog post will be a good visual for why I need to improve my binding skills, ha!
I've made both straight and bias binding but prefer bias binding. Seems like its more forgiving. First issue: I seem to have problems joining on a 45 degree angle even though I hold the ends together, visualize, trim, etc. Hello, Jack the ripper!
See what I've done here? Made the binding too short. I had 15 more minutes left to sew and decided to sew on one more binding, it was the wrong decision. I wanted it to work and decided to see if it looked better the next morning. No, Jack and I fixed it.
There were other mistakes, some bindings were even fused down with an old roll of Stitch Witchery I found in a drawer. After I made several dozen of these, I just wanted them done!
So here they are, some of the mug rugs I'm gifting.
Recipients will be warned of possible binding malfunctions.
On to deadline quilt #2 and if my swap partner is reading this, I promise your binding will look good.
Until next time, Mayleen
1 comment:
Oh yes, Maylene! Bindings are tough! They're a skill that I keep trying to master. Though I use a completely different technique than you do (my binding is sewn to the quilt in four strips, and then the strips are machine-sewn closed at each of the four corners), I continue to struggle to get my quilts square. I think the problem stems from always FMQing my own quilts. There's a lot more distortion in the home machine quilting process than there is in the longarm quilting process. And it has nothing to do with making a secure quilt sandwich, because if anything, I use too many safety pins to hold it all together. So I can commissurate with your challenge and difficulties. When you find the perfect fix, please write a blog post about it! :-)
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