Hand Binding vs. Machine Binding

March 17, 2025

There are definitely mixed opinions out there about machine piecing vs. hand piecing, machine quilting vs. hand quilting and I think it follows through to binding as well. For years, I only hand pieced all of my quilts, in fact, my first machine pieced quilt was during the beginning of Covid. And all of my quilts up until that point were also hand quilted in my big floor frame. I admit that my first quilt done on the longarm almost felt like I had betrayed the craft, lol. But now I see that the craft has just evolved to include using different techniques. I still find hand piecing therapeutic and always have some handwork that can be packed in a little bag and taken to work on while sitting in the car, or a doctor's waiting room, or hospital room etc.

Even after I bit the bullet and machine pieced, and longarm quilted my first few quilts, I was still hand binding. Occassionally, I would cheat and try to whip up a quick finish by using a decorative stitch but I must admit it wasn't my favorite look.

But then one day I saw a post on Facebook about an amazing sewing machine foot that had rave reviews on using it for machine binding. It's called a 1.5mm left compensating foot and I love it. Full disclosure, this was on a Juki site and I have two machines that this foot works on. I have seen a few other brands that have this foot, but I would recommend that you check with a dealer of your specific brand to see if there is one available to fit your machine.

The foot has a groove on the left leg of the foot that allows you to stitch evenly and very closely along the edge of your binding giving a beautiful consistent look to your stitching.

I prefer to stitch the binding to the back of the quilt using my normal 1/4 inch foot and then flip the binding to the front of the quilt and use the compensating foot to stitch the front down. I love the way this looks, I was never able to achieve such an evenly placed topstitch row before I tried this foot. No matter how hard I had tried, it used to weave and wobble and was never straight and even.

I match my top thread to the binding fabric on the front of the quilt, and then I match my bobbin thread with whatever color thread is used in the quilting on the back of my quilt. This gives a neat straight stitch just inside of the binding on the back of the quilt and I dont'tfind it looks out of place at all, it just blends in as part of the quilting.

Yes, I still think that handstitched, hand appliqued, or hand embroidered quilts are better suited to hand binding. And I'm one of the minority that loves to bind, sitting and hand binding a quilt is very relaxing. But I no longer feel like I'm cheating when I choose to machine bind. We have been blessed with many new techniques and innovations that change how we do things and I enjoy using a variety of them.

Twila

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