The Gift of Guild Meetings

Joining the Columbus Star Quilters Guild was one of the best gifts I could have given myself.  I've met some wonderful women, who also happen to be quilters.  They've introduced me to other quilters, who are also wonderful women.  And I've learned so much from them all.

Today's educational session was about quilt binding techniques.  Binding a quilt is one of those things I learned how to do by trial and error and if you look at my bindings, you can tell.  Most quilt books go into detail about choosing fabrics, designing the quilt and constructing the quilt.  When it gets to the part about quilting and binding, the statements are:
   Quilt as Desired
   Bind the Quilt

Two very talented quilters shared their specific process to finish and bind a quilt.  And they had different ways of completing that task.  Susan Rothrock shared her method for attaching a French Fold binding, including her method of joining the beginning and ending pieces of the binding.  She was demonstrating the joining technique using a slightly different process but one she thought worked very well during her trials prior to the meeting.  And she joined the edges beautifully.  She demonstrated that she, too, is human when the joined binding had that lovely twist in it.  Having done that before, I know how easy that is to do.  Susan also talked about squaring up the quilt top and using her walking foot to stitch around the edge of the quilt PRIOR to attaching the binding.  She then uses a regular foot to attach the binding and doesn't have problems with unwanted tucks creeping in.

Lois Griffith talked about her preference for a single fold binding and the technique to attach bindings to the sides and then the top of the quilt rather than running a single length of bindng around the quilt and mitering the corners.  I've become more aware of this method for binding quilts and have seen it in quite a few quilts recently.  Adding piping and rick rack,creating Prarie Points, using Wonder Under to attach a binding, and doing a pillow case binding were other techniques discussed by Lois.

Since two of the comments on my quilt from a quilt judge were that my binding needed work, I paid close attention to the lessons taught by these wonderful quilters.  I just wish I had waited for these lessons before cutting off the excess batting and backing from a quilt I just completed quilting last night!  Oh, well - always room for improvement.

It helps that everyone is so encouraging - another great reason to join a guild.

Cheers!

Margaret