I’ve been working like crazy to get some customer stuff done so that I can get a piece of my own finished for the Modern challenges at MQX (Have something to enter? You can see all the rules and deadlines here for the display section and here is a link to the catalog where you can find the info for the judged section on page 9.)
Because of that, I’m stepping up my game for the binding, and I’ve been doing a ton of reading and youtube watching. Over on the Modern Quilting group on facebook, there was also a discussion of what is best to use, bias or straight grain binding? It was explained to me at one show I went to (which I now can’t remember), and I am just going to cut and paste my comment there
The reason for choosing bias over double fold is that, if you have it exactly cut on-grain, the wear will always be in the same few threads on the edge. If you use bias, then the wear goes over a number of different threads (if you fold them both ways and run your fingernail along the fold, you can see what I mean). That said, I do double fold, but rather than squaring up my fabric to make sure it’s on grain, I let it be “off”, so it’s a fakey-fake bias: just enough to ensure that the threads are not the same across that folded edge.
One of the commenters pointed out that Harriet Hargrave had written this in one of her books, and yup, it’s there in her section on binding in Quiltmaker’s Academy: Vol. 1. I didn’t hear this from her at whatever show that was, but I think it is pretty good advice, so why not go to the horse’s mouth?
I’ve also been watching Sharon Schamber’s youtube video on binding, which is full of useful techniques. I don’t think I will use them all the time, but there are some things I’ve incorporated that have really helped alot. Your mileage will probably vary, depending on what your goals are. It’s a long video, but totally worth it. My glue tips are on order, and have yet to arrive, but I will say that if you’re looking for little glue tips and squeezy bottles, look for henna bottles and applicators. Amazon.com has a wide variety and you can see the different kinds of tips and they’re cheap.
There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of videos on how to do every aspect of binding. These two just happen to be the ones I like the most for traditional-looking binding (not the knife edge, which I’ve written about elsewhere).
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