A Matter of Pressing

Often you hear, "if it was just cut out" or other similar statements of a certain step in getting the quilt completed.  Generally I love all the steps except ONE.  I have always found pressing the binding in preparation to applying it to the quilt to be the one thing I wish the quilting fairy would do for me.  But since she is never around when that task arrives, I have to accomplish it on my own.

It's a known fact, I love notions and gravitate to anything new I see.  Of course, I have some that I have not found to be successful for me, but I have found one that is my buddy when it comes to pressing all those yards of quilt binding.

This is a Quilt Binding Express, I have found I really enjoy using this tool when pressing quilt binding together.  You are able to press 2", 2 1/4", and 2 1/2" binding strips with this tool.

I always have a concern when pressing binding that it may become distorted and with bias binding I feel stretching to be a concern.  With the Quilt Binding Express I find these issues to be eliminated.  And it is easy to use.

Since I use a very low loft batting I generally use a 2" strip for my binding.  I press about an inch of my binding in half and then start feeding it into my Quilt Binding Express.  I feed the binding into the appropriate slot and with raw edges toward me, I start pulling the binding through.  The blue lines on the tool are the exact size of your folded binding strip.  As I am pulling with my left hand, I am cupping the binding to be fed in my right hand and find when the binding to be pressed is on the board, it is generally accurate.

Then pressing with the iron gives a nice sharp edge to my binding.  And with the binding centered on the blue line, I also know I am not distorting my binding allowing it to be sewn to my quilt smoothly.

Now the Quilt Binding Express makes pressing all those yards of binding a little less painful.  Life is a journey...enjoy each day!