This post is part of the River Pond Quilt Along. You can find more info and the schedule HERE. While this content is directed toward the River Pond QAL, the same concepts can be applied to any quilt that you are making.
You can purchase the River Pond pattern HERE.
Let's Talk Binding
I’m going to get right to the point and let you know that this is hands down my favorite way to bind a quilt! Am I allowed to add someone else’s video on my blog?! I don’t know. But I’m a huge advocate for glue basting and this video changed my quilting.
This video is by Sharon Schamber – Perfect Straight Binding.
I LOVE glue basting, and even glue baste in my paper piecing – you can find my tutorials HERE on my blog and on YouTube.
You can also check out Cristy Fincher (Sharon’s daughter) and learn all the tricks of glue basting. She is a quilting genius and I love her!
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I will say that I have never starched my fabric, so I don’t do everything in the video, but the glue basting is the absolute best!!
If this isn’t you’re thing, then I there are a lot of other tutorials out there too, and especially with quilting, a lot of the process is finding what techniques work best for you! And that’s totally ok! So if you don’t like glue basting, that’s cool! (but you should at least give it a try. heehee.)
Adding Creativity to You Bindings
Initially I always think of binding a quilt as the final hump before enjoying the labor of love quilt that you just created. But in truth, I love taking a little time to add that final touch of creativity to my quilts by playing with the binding.
My go to – adding a corner or patch of color to my bindings. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and the majority of my quilts have a small section of color and I love the small added interest that it adds to my quilts.
Here are some examples:
This is a mug rug I made for a swap using my Starburst pattern. The binding colors really pop against the navy background and binding and I love the effect! I pulled colors from the main print that I used.
The colors on this baby size quilt, using My First Alphabet pattern, is a lot more subtle, but adds a little more movement to the overall design.
I always pull colors form the quilt for the colors I add to my binding.
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For this modern disappearing 9 patch mini quilt that I made, I added some color to the binding around the bottom right corner as well as in the top left side. I also did a more scrappy binding, so the binding fabric between the colors is different on each side. This really plays into the overall design of the quilt.
I added color to a few places in this Rise Above Geometric mini quilt. I wanted to “frame in” the hot air balloon so it didn’t feel like it would float away.
I added the sky fabric to the top left corner, and the purple and yellow to the bottom right corner. Matching these up so they were just in the right place did take a little more effort, but it was well worth it.
Usually I don’t add the colors around the corners, but I like this here. The purple especially does a really good job at grounding the whole mini quilt – adding just enough weight without taking away from the overall design.
Another Touch of Fun
Another creative idea that I saw recently that I’m excited to try with my River Pond quilt binding is Big Stitch Binding! I first saw it on Erica’s Instagram account, @Kitchentablequilting. And I just found that she even created a tutorial for how she does it HERE.
I LOVE doing big stitches, but have never done it on a binding before. I think this will be fun.
I love the big stitch effect on my Giant Granny Square quilt.
Homework
First up today’s homework is to start and/or finish your quilting. I’m not finished quilting my quilt yet, and that’s ok.
As soon as you you’re done with that, you can move on to the binding! Hooray!
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