Faster binding technique

If you are looking for the Modern Designs for Classic Quilts book giveaway, it is in this post.

While reading through blog posts on the 100 blocks blog tour last week, I happened upon a post for hand stitching binding. Now, I love to hand stitch my binding and I thought that I had a few very handy tools to help speed the process along.

Sometime in the last couple of years, I read on a blog to use hand quilting thread. This thread is a little thicker than regular thread and there is a coating on it to help it slide through the fabric. Also, because the thread is thicker, you only have to use 1 thread where I had been using 2 of regular thread since it was thinner and I didn't want any stitches to break down the road.

When using the hand quilting thread, it is much easier to load up a few stitches before pulling the rest of the thread through. I like to use a pretty long length of thread and take up to 6 stitches pulling through just enough thread to manage the needle and then after the last stitch, I pull the end of the thread through all of the stitches at once.

The way that I had been stitching was to do roughly a 3/8" stitch through the binding fabric and then take a tiny bite of fabric on the quilt. Maybe 2 or 3 threads worth of fabric from the quilt. This is how I was taught and how I have always done my binding.

Well, after reading this post on the Relatively Creative Patterns blog, I decided to give their way a try. I was amazed at how quickly this method of stitching went!!

And it looks so much better! To the left of the needle is the new way of stitching and to the right is how I have always done my stitching. I'm just amazed at the difference.





I used this method to hand stitch the binding on this customer quilt. I got the binding done Saturday morning and shipped it back to the customer before the post office closed! To see better pictures of the quilting, see this post.



Lula is just shocked at this development!