Welcome to I Quilt linky party at Pretty Bobbins  I’m claiming a win as it is still Thursday in some parts of the world….  So come link up and be merry!

I haven’t gotten myself organised to feature anyone this week but I’ll get back on top of that next week  I myself was featured by my local modern quilt guild this week and will be sharing a post with them on what’s inspiring me soon.  Once I write it…  It’s a bit like that at present!  But there is lots of exciting stuff on!  Teaching schedules are being published by Addicted to Fabric and Hobby Sew Belconnen at the moment and I’ll add a page with info on the blog in the next week or so.  I have some BEAUTIFUL Sarah Jane and Jennifer Sampou fabric here that I’m about to get busy with for some upcoming blog hops on the 13th and 30th of April.  I also had a super exciting surprise email from Mark Lipinski and will be on his radio show on the 30th of April.  I have just finished a magical quilt for the lovely Alyce of Blossom Heart Quilts.  That one sure was difficult to post…

Piecing by Alyce Blythe, machine quilting by me

This week I wanted to talk about binding.  Binding is definitely my LEAST favourite part of quilting and until I learnt how to machine bind I had a stack of quilts that were looking like never getting finished.  There are a few different methods out there, but my favourite is by Red Pepper Quilts.  Rita’s example is absolutely PERFECT.  You know that I NEVER aim for perfection but enjoy the process  It took me a few attempts to achieve binding that was caught on the back the whole way around and now I find it quite easy.

My biggest tip for machine binding is to iron the heck out of your binding after you have sewn it to the front.  I use very small bulldog clips on each of the corners of the quilt (if it’s looking like the mitered corners are a bit tight I also use a dab of my sewline glue pen to hold them down) and no pins.  I keep a quilting glove on my left hand to support the quilt and make sure that the weight of the quilt is not pulling it out of place.  I use my (gloveless) right hand to keep the binding firmly in place as it approaches the machine needle.  I find it best to bind a quilt in a single sitting whilst the binding is nicely pressed.

The above quilt, Colour Therapy, is only the second or third quilt that I machine bound and as you can see the binding is quite neat.  If you fear machine binding or you’ve tried Red Pepper Quilt’s method and find it a bit tricky, another popular (and slightly easier) method is by Crazy Mom Quilts.  She attaches her binding to the back, folds it over and then machine stitches it down, so you can actually see the binding and easily catch it rather than doing it by touch.  I have used this method once (below photo) and found it to be very neat and easy.

This week I actually applied binding on the longarm for the first time!  It was surprisingly easy and super fast!  I just made sure that I basted the sides of the quilt very straight and then followed the outside edge of the hopping foot (as a 1/4″ guide).  If you have a longarm and you haven’t tried applying binding on the frame I urge you to give it a go.  You will be surprised at how easy it is and its a great time saver!

Please let me know if you have any binding tips or favourite methods so I can share them next week.  Binding really is my least favourite yet undeniably essential part of quilting!

So that’s me for this week!  Now to collect the children from school and face the weekend.  YAY for weekends I say

Please remember to visit three other linkers (we all love comments!) and add a link and/or button to your post or sidebar.  Remember that this linky is all about the quilty process be it sketching quilting designs, coming up with quilting ideas for a new quilt top, quilting techniques or any other related techniques, tips and lessons learnt.  I love learning from you all each week and I hope you’re enjoying linking up too! Mwah, mwah! (That’s two French kisses in case you were wondering.)  Happy linking xx