Binding Experiments

First of all, let me tell you that I am no longer getting email notifications for comments left. I looked for solutions but found that I am not alone, nevertheless there does not appear to be an answer. For now, I do check my comments and will reply to any queries on the blog itself. 

The last few weeks I have been preparing for an upcoming workshop on FMQ. As I could not visualise the size of the practice sandwiches I ended up stitching some things out myself. Good fun but then I also got into the binding, i.e. how to sew the binding on quickly and easily by machine.

Consulted the net and a binding booklet I had from Bethanne Nemesh.

First one

I used a 2in binding strip and sewed it to the back, then bringing it around to the front and stitching it on with a straight stitch. That looked incredibly easy to do but I struggled with that...in the end I glued my binding in place before stitching so that it would not move all over the place. That worked fine, but the glueing took a while!

Second sample

For this one I stitched my binding onto the front like I usually do. Again could not cope with pins or clips and ended up glueing it to the back. I found this incredibly laborious. This time I had used a 2-1/4in binding as suggested in BethanneNemesh' binding booklet. Initially I was going to stitch-in-the- ditch on the front through to the back but I did not like the lip that was left on the back, so I used a decorative stitch to secure the binding. That worked reasonably well, except for the time it took me to glue everything in place.

Third sample

That one was a bit of a disaster...stitched the binding onto the back, then brought it to the front and secured it with a decorative stitch again. Again used a 2-1/4in binding but did not glue it this time but basted it by hand in place. Also not very fast at all and the finish is somewhat hickledy-pickledy. Definitely not straight.

 

Fun little exercise, not sure I gained that much from it...I could have hand-sewed the binding on these three little pieces in no time at all. I think the method that could possibly work for me would be sample no. 2 where I sewed the binding to the front and then secured it with some sort of stitch. If I was to opt for a in-the-ditch stitch I would definitely make my binding 2in wide so the lip in the back would not be that large or I would opt again for a decorative stitch. Not sure though about the glueing everything into place...that took me a while even on such a small piece.

Karin