2009 June 07 — Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

June 7, 2009 · by JudyL

To answer some questions:

When I take a quilt off the longarm, I trim it before adding the binding. I usually trim to near the edge of the quilt top, leaving just a smidgen of backing/batting. My main goal is to be sure everything is straight. If my outer border was cut 3-1/2″ wide, in theory, it should now be 3-1/4″ wide because I’ve used 1/4″ in the seam attaching the border to the top but the other 1/4″ seam allowance hasn’t been used yet. I’ll line up my ruler with the 3-1/4″ mark on the seam where the border is attached to the top. The edge is never perfect but that’s where I trim, leaving just a bit of extra batting and backing there.
My binding is cut 2-1/2″, folded in half and pressed. When I don’t press is after attaching it to the front of the quilt.
I attach the binding with the walking foot. My machine is old and my walking foot is big and clunky. I line up the right side of the walking foot with the edge of the binding/quilt sandwich, then move my needle all the way to the right. That gives me about a 3/8″ seam allowance. I never feel like 1/4″ is enough for attaching binding but there’s surely nothing wrong with using 1/4″ if you’re comfortable with that. If using a 1/4″ seam, you’d get about the same result I get if you cut your binding strips 2-1/4″ (because my seam allowance is 1/8″ wider and my binding strip is folded in half . . 2 x 1/8″ = 1/4″ . . take the 1/4″ off the 2-1/2″ strips I cut and you get 2-1/4″ strips).
When I get to the corners, I do snip a bit of the corner off (this is the corner that gets tucked into the miter. I’m very careful not to cut into the binding that’s going to be flipped over.
I use the walking foot for doing the SID on the front when finishing the binding.

Here are some pictures of a top I did where the last border is red and the binding is black. I used red Superior Bottom Line thread on top and black Superior Bottom Line in the bobbin. Nowhere do I see pokies of red or black thread. That’s one reason I love this old Bernina! If you have problems with pokies showing through and it bothers you, mess with the tension til you get it right.

I’m just going to throw in some pictures. You can click on them if you’d like and see how it all looks. I tried to take several shots of the same area, just to see if the stitching would show up. The black thread is hard to see on the black fabric and it’s almost impossible to see the red stitching. It’s buried underneath the little “fluffy edge” from the binding where I hadn’t pressed it down. I’m so thrilled with the results.