Binding Tricks

Good Evening/Morning All!
My son started summer vacation today and it was an interesting day.  We had a huge fight early in the morning and then spent the rest of the morning cuddling on the couch between my loads of laundry.  Hoping we can continue with the cuddling, not the fighting.

How about you, do you have children on vacation?  Are you dreading it or looking forward to it?

 We are going to be taking our kids to my in-laws next week for a few weeks.  They live about a 13 hour drive away from us.  It will be the first time our kids are away from us for more than overnight.  It was a really hard decision for us.  The kiddies are 5 and 3.  I'll be driving them down myself, stay for a few days, go shopping in the States, and then come home.

I'm gonna be using the time without the kids to get caught up on estate stuff.  I need to deal with Child Maintenance, Public Trustee, Canadian Lawyer, States Lawyer, Land Titles, Banks, and the list goes on.....  Hoping Hubby will use the time to finish basement renovations and house maintenance.  We are also going to be painting the kids rooms and updating the styles.

On to the quilting...

When adding the binding to the wall hanging for the Twin's room, I discovered 2 things that made putting the binding on easier.  Here are the pictures illustrating what I found:

First need to show the panel.  :)

When turning the corner using the mitering method, I used to squish up the fabric tight to the needle.  Many times the fabric would get jammed and stitch in place.  I would have to fight to get it moving forward.  Look very closely right in front of needle to see the bunch.

 I learned to give the fabric breathing room.  Worked like a charm.  Moved forward with no issues.  Boy was I HAPPY when I figured this out.  I hate when the fabric gets stuck.

 Do you ever take a picture and forget why?  That's what happened with this picture LOL.

And I even took 2 with slightly different angles.

My second Aha moment was finishing the binding.  I machine sew my binding ends together before completely attaching the binding to the quilt.  A few times, I sewed the strips together incorrectly and would have to rip it out and try to figure it out again.  Or I would spend a lot of time putting in lots of pins to figure out how to attach the strips together.  The further apart my binding projects the longer it would take me to figure out.

I discovered:  Open both strips and mark a diagonal line going the same direction on the wrong side of both strips.  The left side will end/start on the bottom corner and the right side with end/start with the top corner.  Place right side together matching up the lines, you will have a perfect mitered beginning/ending to your binding.

 Hope this makes sense to you, but please ask questions if I wasn't clear enough.

Have you had AHA moments when attaching binding?  If so, I would love to hear about yours.

Have a great day!

Vicky K