I learned how to bind a quilt...

Phew so much is going on in my sewing world that I truly don't know where to begin, but since I love learning I should start there! Now to most of you binding a quilt is old hat, but to me it was a little scary and so I had been avoiding it...sad but true!

Have you ever decided that you just are going to have a horrible time trying to learn something and because of that you just won't dig in and give it a try? Well that's how learning to bind a quilt with mitered corners has been for me.

I have been working on a small quilting project using the Sandy Gervais Flirt Collection panel and yardage. All went well with piecing, basting and the quilting portion of the project, but then came the binding and I about went to pieces!!!

I read books about it and asked other quilters to give me tips but I was still terrified. This is not a new fear to this baby quilter either as I have two quilts in various stages of incompleteness that I know I will have to bind one day. They are currently glaring at me from a corner of my sewing room.

Isn't my small mitered corner cute?

So I finally sat down and decided that I wasn't going to let this fear beat me and after some trial and error I DID IT!!!! Yippeeeee!!! I mitered my corners with no trouble at all! I made my 'pocket' for joining the ends together which makes the binding appear as if there is no beginning and no end!! I blind stitched my binding down with no problem and once I was all done all I could say was, "This is so easy peasy!"


It was good for me to overcome this fear, as I felt my quilting confidence sky rocket once I was done with this darling little project. It's just a smallish little baby blanket, using the panel as the focal point and 3 inch wide strips in a random log cabin fashion to create the border. I made my binding 1 1/2 inches wide (3 inch strips) and used a 1/4 inch seam on the front for a traditional look, but the binding is nice and wide on the back for more contrast and I am thrilled with the result!!

I am pleased with the width of the back binding too!

I didn't use a specific pattern, so as you can see I am normally fearless when it comes to most things, but the binding did beat me down for a while. Hah take that you evil binding!!

I hope my little story will encourage you to move forward and learn something new. It doesn't matter where you are in your abilities there is always something that you can learn and being fearful of it only makes it bigger and scarier than it should be!

Okay so off to bind my next quilt because I am now UNSTOPPABLE!!

As always, happy knitting, crocheting and sewing!!

Jeanne

PS. I would love to hear about your projects and what you might be learning, or fearful of learning. Let's tackle this one project at a time together!!