1,500 inches of binding
Not that long ago I wrote about how the downside of spending so much time on the longarm lately means I now had 700 inches of binding to do by hand. I know there are some who love sewing binding on by hand. I’m not one of them. But I prefer the look to machine stitched binding, so I do it even though it is probably be least favorite quilting step.
Except I didn’t … do it that is … sew on the binding. But I did keep quilting and now my 700 inches of binding has ballooned to about 1,500 inches. That’s right folks. I have two full-sized bed quilts, a king-sized quilt and eight placemats that would be completely done if I would just bind them.
But I do have a plan. We’ve had a family vacation planned for a week of relaxation and no work. Unfortunately, no work for me, means no sewing machine. To remove the temptation to bring it anyway, I scheduled my machine to go into the shop for a much needed cleaning while we’re gone.
I am claiming a loophole though in the no work clause. I cannot sit idle. I just can’t. My hands need to be doing something even if I’m just binge watching “Orange is the New Black” on Netflix. (Which I intend to be doing on Friday when season three comes out). So I spent last week preparing all 1,500 inches of binding and sewing it to the top of the quilt by machine. Then each night on vacation I’ll put my daughter to bed, turn on a movie and snuggle up on the couch with my husband, a quilt and my needle and thread to bind.
Now that is my idea of a nice vacation.
That sounds like a great plan! I like hand sewing, but binding is a bit boring, and 1500 inches of it–yikes!
I do the same, but unfortunately I have 14 full sized plus to sew binding on. I have made a pledge that I will not touch my sewing machine until the bindings are all complete, so this inspires me to do a little each evening.
I too like the look of hand stitched bindings over machine stitched. A couple of years ago I made 6 twin size quilts for my grandchildren and sent them out to be quilted. I got them back just before Thanksgiving and had all the bindings to do before Christmas! Every spare minute I had was spent stitching and I got them done! The kids loved their new quilts.