MommaDorian

I'm not sure if my title makes sense, but I need someone who hand sews their binding. Is there someone who be able to look at some of my work and give me some pointers? I'd like to mail a couple of my projects, easy potholders, to get some good feedback. Ultimately I'd like to put a quilt in our county fair. I'm not sure what they look for. I know they look for hand sewn bindings. Anybody interested?

QuiltE

First of all, please rememberl ... every judge can be different in how s/he judges. Each is apt to have his/her pet peeve and will pounce on that one thing, more than another! And there'll be some things a judge may never even look at. How much they scrutinize, may depend on how stiff (quantity and quality) the competition is

What do they look for?
* binding, straight and even
* pucker free
* corners of quilt square, and then the binding corner mitred perfectly and square with that corner
* inside of binding is "full" (when you machine sew on the binding, and flip it to the other side, make sure it is pulled all the way over, so that the binding is full with the batting)
* bias joins, including the final join
* hand stitching next thing to invisible

I'm sure there's more, but this is what first comes to mind!

It's a fair question to ask if the Fair will provide the judging standards card to you in advance of the show. Some will, some won't.

And it's not just the binding that is going to win or lose for your entry. Attention to detail throughout the construction and finish and making sure that all is straight, square and precise is going to take you a long way to the finish line!

Good Luck! and have FUN with your entries!

willferg

Check out this video:

http://turningturning.com/tutorial-i...quilt-binding/

This is what made the difference for me. Before that, I whip stitched the binding on the backside, and I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW that it wasn't supposed to show. Finally I caught on, and then I tried everything I could think of to make sewing the binding easier, much like the woman on the website. Then I learned the ladder stitch, and everything fell into place. It's easy, it looks good, it goes pretty quick...

Check it out and see what you think!

auntpiggylpn

I've always done this stitch and had no idea it was called the "Ladder Stitch"!!!

Tartan

The bindings on your potholders that I have seen look nice. Why not enter a few things as is and see how you do? Hopefully the judge will write comments on the back of your tags that you can learn from. It's like buying a lottery ticket, if you enter you could win. Remember what one judge loves another may hate, so just enter another venue.

mike'sgirl

Jenny Doan from Missouri Star has a tute on sewing on a binding. The stitches disapear. I use her method.