QUILTID-19, Part 7: Binding

Once the quilting was out of the way, this quilt could basically finish itself. I still had my sewing room rearranged for optimum quilt sewing, so I forced myself to add the binding before I was allowed to restore order. After quilting was finished, I trimmed and squared the whole quilt, and sewed a basting stitch around the perimeter to hold everything in place for binding.

I chose this cobalt blue fabric, which is also included in some of the quilt blocks, for the binding because I love a good striped binding and it coordinates well with the quilt top as well as the quilt back. I cut bias strips at 2.5″ wide and folded them in half, following the instructions in this tutorial: Attaching the Binding – Village Bound Quilts.

I machine-stitched the folded binding to the raw edge, right-to-right on the front with my walking foot. I decided to hand-stitch the final, folded edge on the back. This was slow and tedious, of course – a lot of hand stitching. But I had read a few posts and tutorials on quilt binding, and one of them waxed poetic about the hand stitching process, and that appealed to my sentimental side. I had spent so much time and effort on this quilt, and this was the last step – why not take the time to do it in the neatest way possible, especially when that meant snuggling up with my new quilt on the couch?

I pressed the binding first, so it was already laying with a proper fold. This made the hand sewing very straightforward, but it was still slow. I think I made it around the perimeter in 3-4 movies, probably about 6 hours total (spread over about a week).

But again, this was my view as I did my stitching, so it was a pretty happy place to be.

Tying that final knot was very anticlimactic. I couldn’t believe that after hours and months (and seven blog posts) this quilt was actually, truly, done! Such an accomplishment.

And don’t worry, I gave this quilt the photoshoot it deserves. That was really fun. Stay tuned, because this quilt + palm trees are made for each other.

Click here to see all the posts about my Quarantine Quilt, QUILTID-19.