Machine Binding Technique

I had a chance to try out a new machine binding technique when I finished my placemat for the March Free Motion Challenge.

But first, I guess I should tell you which technique I have been using.  There are a lot of tutorials out there, including one at Pat Sloan's site, and even videos at You Tube. Basically, you trim the backing and batting (cutting from the front, approximately 1/8 inch from the edge of your top) before you sew the binding onto the BACK of your quilt (with a 1/4 inch seam).  You then flip the binding over onto your front and sew it into place using a decorative stitch making sure you cover the stitch line that is there from sewing the binding onto the back.  I used this technique to bind the peacock quilt at the beginning of the year.

this is the view of the binding from the front of the quilt

I liked this technique for speed, and can see how the decorative stitching adds another element to some quilts.  But, I sometimes miss the nice crisp edge that you get from hand sewing the binding in place.  Enter new technique, which I have searched my browser history for over an hour trying to find out where it was I read it one night.

In this technique, you machine stitch your binding onto the front of the quilt as usual, trim the edges as usual (3/8 inch from the stitch line), and then press the heck out of it.  The tutorial I read, said to then wrap the binding around to the back side, using your fingers to hold it in place, and stitch in-the-ditch from the front, making sure you caught the binding on the backside of your backing.  I thought that sounded pretty hard, so I pinned mine in place about every 4 or 5 inches, and especially around the corners.  The result is a nice clean look from the front, and the stitching on the back is no worse than the first technique (for some reason mine is a little wavy in places).  Although....even pinning, I did manage to miss a few spots and had to go back and re-stitch them.  Here are the pics.

In-the-ditch stitching, but see that nice crisp edge!

This is one of the spots I missed even with pinning

I think all in all, I liked this machine binding technique better than the old.  However, I will need to continue to pin the binding in place, and should probably pin closer together in the future.  I just don't see how you could do this with just your hands unless you trimmed closer to the edge and really stretched the binding into place.