I try to learn something or add a new skill to my quilting with each quilt I make. Ellie's quilt was no different. With Ellie Has My Heart, I decided to play with a new toy ... my binding tool by TQM. I purchased it in Knoxville last summer, at the AQS show, but I haven't used it yet. I've bound a couple of projects, but either they were too small or I forgot about it until it was too late.
Anyway, this time I remembered I had it and how frustrating the two meeting ends of the binding always are to me. From my first quilt, I've just always fit the beginning of my binding into the end and stitched it down that way. But it's so bulky and it irritates me to have to do that. When I saw the binder tool demonstrated at the show, I knew it was perfect for me!
The thing is, you have to remember you're going to use it before you stitch your binding onto your quilt. You have to mark a 12" space on your quilt edge and start and stop your binding on those marks, leaving 10" of extra binding at both ends to work with.
The binding tool has lines on it to indicate where you mark your left and right sides and the diagonal line for cutting. There's even a little notch which helps you match up your two sides for pinning and sewing.
Then stitch up using a 1/4" seam . . .
Press down the seam and fold . . .
And voila, you can't even tell where my binding begins and ends now!
It was very easy to use (once I had it figured out) and did a marvelous job. And I'd give clearer instructions here, except there's really no need. I did a search for a video tutorial -- it had been a tad long since I'd seen the live demo and I couldn't quite figure it out -- and the video demo done by The Missouri Star Quilt Co. is well done and made short work of the explanation.
I was so pleased with how the binding looked.! I won't be forgetting about it the next time I bind a quilt, that's for sure!
My Ellie girl seems to be well-pleased with the binding job too . . .
What a sweetheart!
:)
